A meeting with the regional family councilor, Nuccia Albano, to ask that the resources made available by the National Program for Child and Elderly Care Services be refinanced.
This is requested by ANCI Sicilia which already last month, after a meeting in Rome with the Management Authority of the PNSCIA Programme, had raised the alarm on the negative impact that the absence of new resources, expected until 30 June, could have on the essential levels of benefits intended for beneficiaries of the Program residing in the four regions of the European “Convergence” objective (Calabria, Campania, Puglia and Sicily).
“The disappearance, after more than a decade, of the PNSCIA funds starting from the second half of 2024 – explained Amenta and Alvano – will increase the need for ordinary resources for the management of nursery schools and will strongly undermine the interest of the municipalities in participating in the notice relating to the MIM decree of 30 April 2024 n. 79. This decree, relating to the new Plan for nursery schools worth 734.9 million euros, allocating investment funds for the construction of new structures or renovation of buildings to be used as nursery schools, will paradoxically require greater spending also for current funds”.
“In particular – explains Amenta – according to European directives, early childhood services should reach a percentage of 33% for children from 0 to 36 months to be welcomed in public or affiliated nursery schools. We remind you that in Sicily with the current financing plans we are stuck at 12%. Furthermore, without management funds it is perfectly useless to build new structures for children which without adequate resources would remain empty boxes”.
“Finally – concludes the president of the Association of Sicilian Municipalities – either the PNSCIA program is refinanced or it will be necessary to remodulate the resources provided by the Special Service Level Equity Fund (Budget Law 2024 Art. 1, co. 494-501).
