The Darmstadt finance director André Schellenberg (CDU) expects losses of 30 to 40 million euros “at best” due to impending tax and fee losses, but rejects a supplementary budget.
For the second time during the Corona crisis, Darmstadt has City council Meet in reduced numbers in the “Darmstadtium” congress center. 40 city councilors gathered on Thursday afternoon with a sufficient safety distance in the “Spectrum” hall.
A table was available for each of the 40 city councilors present, and each time the speaker was changed, the microphone was replaced by a member of the congress center and also disinfected as a precaution. At two hours and 45 minutes, however, the session lasted two hours longer than the first parliamentary session in emergency occupation at the beginning of April.
OB Partsch: Corona crisis so far “managed sensibly and wisely”
Darmstadt’s Mayor Jochen Partsch (Greens) said at the beginning of the session that the challenges of the Corona crisis had so far been “handled sensibly and wisely”.
In the past seven days, there have only been four other infections with the novel in the city Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 given. The total number of confirmed Infections stated Partsch with 208 cases. According to the Hessian Ministry of Social Affairs, the number has increased by five cases to 215 in the past seven days.
Partsch said that one had to be prepared to “live with the virus for a long, long, long time”. “We can not be reassured,” warned the mayor.
All social institutions, service providers and clubs are financially secure and can rely on the city, Partsch said.
Corona crisis will have “significant effects” on the budget of the city of Darmstadt
City treasurer André Schellenberg (CDU) spoke out against setting up one Supplementary budgets out. The pandemic will have a “significant impact” on the city budget this year and beyond. He “at best” assumes losses of 30 to 40 million euros. Schellenberg, however, is more likely to expect charges of 50 to 60 million euros.
At the beginning of the month, the Darmstadt finance department announced that the city was threatened with a high deficit due to the expected slump in the population as a result of the corona restrictions tax income.
The city councilor also said Schellenberg that it was also being created Additional expensesto cope with the crisis. However, it is currently not possible to give a “reliable forecast”. “The fog has not nearly cleared,” said Schellenberg.
Reliable figures only after the tax estimate in November
Even with the Tax estimate in May you will be able to make “no meaningful forecast”. It would not be possible to provide more reliable information until the second reading of the budget at the end of November, when the figures for the next tax estimate are available.
Schellenberg said he could also break in Business tax not rule out by 30 percent, which would mean a loss of 53.4 million euros. There are currently applications for tax deferrals amounting to 51 million euros. However, this also includes old cases that are not the result of the corona crisis.
After the financial crisis at Income tax a drop of eleven percent is now realistic, a decrease of 15 percent. According to Schellenberg, that would mean a minus of 15.6 million euros. And with a five percent drop in value added taxRevenue would be missing from the city treasury by another 1.2 million euros.
He also expects losses at Gaming machine taxbecause the arcades have closed. This tax flushes 360,000 euros into the city treasury every month. The failure of the Daycare fees charges the city bag with another 170,000 euros per month. And because currently Funeral halls may not be used, they cannot be rented, which means that the city treasury is missing another 20,000 euros per month.
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