Quasi six million less, broken down in five years until 2028, for Verona. Fourteen for Venice, six and a half for Padua, two and a half for Vicenza, one million and six for Treviso. And so on, cut after cut, from the capitals to the cities, to 418 thousand euros less for Conegliano621 thousand euros for Bassano del Grappa. And even the smallest municipality in Veneto, Laghi nel Vicentino, finds itself without 5,400 euros, and we know how much they can be worth when it comes to managing essential services. The State City Conference met on Thursday and has defined the cuts to the Municipalities based on current spending and, above all, on the money received from the Pnrr: in short, the more virtuous the administration has been in drawing on the sums arriving from Europe, the greater the State withholdings (in the table presented to the administrators it is the “contribution to public finance”, this is the definition packaged to avoid using the word “cleaver”).
Cuts and compensations
To soften the cut, the government has allocated a tranche of Covid contributions which allow Verona, just to maintain the initial example, to recover one million and 857 thousand euros in four years, and something more than 5 million for the city of Venice. A swab, of course, but better than finding yourself with an intact cut without compromises. Then there are deductions of smaller amounts but equally damaging to the public coffers and are those that concern the Provinces and the Metropolitan City of Venice: from five and a half million of missing contributions for the Veronese to one million and three hundred thousand euros for the Bellunese. In any case, this is less money for the ordinary activities of the administrations.
Certainties but fewer resources
The sum of the cuts suffered in the next five years from the 562 Venetian municipalities amounts to 85.5 million euros: this is all money that cannot be invested, savings that municipalities will have to make in order not to end up in the red.
Commenting on the overall picture of the cuts is the Director of Anci Veneto and Upi Veneto Carlo Rapicavoli: «The cut is determined for the two-year period 2024-2025 by the sum of those already arranged in the month of March, in implementation of the 2021 Budget Law, and the distribution envisaged by the 2024 Budget Law which extends until 2028 – he explains -. This cfinally allows organizations to have reliable data in view of the mandatory fulfillment to be carried out by 31 July to verify the balance of the budget”. But This is certainly not good news because entities with increasingly meager budgets and ever-increasing demands on the territory are struggling to make ends meet. From the current expenditure databasis of cuts, the expenses for the social chapter have been subtractede The interventions on nursery schools, green islands and small works were removed from the Pnrr funds receivedin order to calculate the percentage of fewer resources on lower quotas.
The stop of Anci
A first step towards the Municipalities to which is added the attribution of the residual resources of the Covid funds in proportion to the cuts suffered: «It partially attenuates the impact of the reduction of current resources on budgets already in difficulty» he underlines Quickwhich continues by recalling that the association of Municipalities did not agree with the government’s choiceas already announced weeks ago, when the news of the cuts began to leak out: «The lack of a formal agreement in the Conference by Anci intends to underline the unsustainability of further reductions in resources which would translate into cuts to services, ordinary maintenance and, inevitably, also to scheduled hiring. A fundamental issue to be addressed also in the future, with the application of the new stability pact; it is not conceivable to act further on the budgets of local authorities if we want to prevent burdening families or causing the deterioration of roads, schools and public property due to lack of maintenance”.
At the City State conference on Thursday, the mayor of Vicenza Giacomo Possamai was designated by Anci (together with the mayor of Naples Gaetano Manfredi), taking over from the mayors of Florence and Pesaro.
