Vienna (OTS) – Although the Freedom Party approved the aid package for municipalities amounting to almost one billion euros approved today in the National Council, there was still some criticism for the Liberal National Council member and mayor Maximilian Linder, especially regarding the Municipal Investment Act 2023: “Of the billion within the framework of the Municipal Investment Act 2023, of the last aid package, only around 46 percent had been collected by the end of April. So around 460 million euros have been collected and 540 million are still in the pot. Not because the communities don’t need money or because they don’t know how to invest it, but rather because the communities can no longer afford the 50 percent contribution. And then the black-green government goes and decides on the next aid package, which will not be well received, even if the own contribution is reduced somewhat.
Linder continues: “In 2023, Parliament decided as part of the financial equalization, which came into force in January 2024 and is intended to apply for three years, that this year municipalities will receive, among other things, 300 million euros as an advance grant over the course of this year – repayable in the next one three years. This means that the communities received the money in April/May and in January the community has to start repaying it again. Anyone who knows that in practice a community can only use the money once they have it in writing and then they have to do a project where they have to start paying it back straight away. Three or four months after this financial equalization, Parliament decides on the next aid package, the third aid package in a row. The municipalities should now receive 300 million euros so that they can pay off the other 300 million. A further 500 million euros are earmarked for investments.”
The ÖVP has apparently been away from municipal practice for too long that it no longer knows what hurdles and challenges a municipality has to overcome, said the liberal mayor: “The situation in the municipalities is catastrophic. 66 percent of Carinthian municipalities will be insolvent by the end of 2024. They are unable to pay for banal, normal daily expenses – for example: snow removal, road maintenance, kindergartens.”
“The Carinthian municipalities have the highest levy burden, and even the SPÖ, which provides the state governor, cannot explain its way out of this. Of the revenue shares, the Carinthian communities have exactly 13 cents left over for each euro of revenue. But, according to the Municipal Documentation Center, the situation will soon be no different for municipalities in other federal states – namely in 2025 and 2026. The federal government has the highest tax revenue in an EU comparison, the municipalities as an administrative unit that is directly responsible for the citizens and makes sure that she helps the citizens with all their problems, but leaves them starving. The municipalities are the most efficient administrative unit because a municipality has to turn over every cent twice before it is spent,” said Linder, who particularly wanted the federal government to fundamentally reform financial equalization: “The distribution in financial equalization must be consistent with the tasks of one Municipality must be adjusted accordingly. The fact that municipalities are being starved as the most efficient administrative unit and, in contrast, the federal government is ‘building a deficit’ and the money is literally being thrown out the window, that cannot be in the interests of the Austrian municipal citizens.”
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