The extension of the Sottrum grammar school represents the largest investment in the entire municipal budget. After all, the district is giving back the more than 4.5 million euros. Many other investments require loans.
© Röhrs
Sottrum – Sottrum’s finance committee chairman Friederike Paar (CDU) says the council was shocked. Mayor of the municipality Peter Freytag (independent) says he would be shocked if the elected officials hadn’t been shocked. The setting at the beginning of a budget debate in the Sottrum community was already more balanced in other years, as was the draft budget itself. In the coming weeks, the specialist committees will deal with their respective so-called products, and perhaps save one or the other. Even if the “clear mandate” announced by Paar from the finance committee was only an appeal from the mayor of the municipality. In any case, after the first reading of the draft budget on Thursday evening, the committee members did not comment on the financial situation of the entire community.
After the introductory words of the couple, Freytag seemed to think he was on the defensive. This draft budget came as no surprise to him. “It is the result of the deliberations of the last few months”, he pushed the responsibility on towards local politics. Now it is up to her to weigh up what should actually be invested in 2021 over the next few weeks.
The draft assumes a surplus of 31,700 euros. Ordinary income of EUR 13.93 million is set against expenses of EUR 13.89 million. Nevertheless: The entire community must take out loans, because in the coming year they actually want to invest heavily, namely a total of 9.67 million euros. In particular, the extension of the grammar school with 4.53 million euros and the planned expansion of the town hall with one million euros are decisive here, as are construction measures for the sewage disposal with 900,000 euros. After all, the integrated community will get back around six million euros from the district as the cost bearer of the grammar school.
The financing of the remaining 3.67 million euros “can only be implemented with loans due to the lack of liquid funds”, says chamberlain Sigrid Bartels. Also in 2022 the town hall and sewage network will lead to further costs. For both years together, she calculates investment costs of 6.65 million euros, which the entire community has to cover itself – again with loans. The entire community has “a full 5400 euros” in liquid funds, Bartels flashed a spark of sarcasm. As of now, a liquidity loan of 2.2 million euros must also be provided. At the beginning of 2020, Sottrum already had debts of 5.89 million euros. Depreciation and interest will burden the budget in 2021 with 1.2 million and around 175,000 euros, respectively. A loan expires in May, according to Bartels.
Another cost driver is personnel costs, which are increasing by around EUR 0.6 million. For the time being, they are increasing by around three percent a year anyway, but more than 6.5 additional full-time positions are also planned; 2.5 of these go to the administration, the rest are spread over the sewage treatment plant, schools and the outdoor swimming pool. It remains to be seen what will become of the structural reform and whether there will be more personnel requirements in the future. According to the first joint councilor Kerstin Wendt, the suggestions from the NSI consultancy have not yet been planned. First of all, they rely on the digitization of processes and that this frees up capacities.
All of this means that the member communities have to transfer more money to their joint administration. The allocation rises to 5.39 million euros. The communities have to swallow this toad, there is a lot of wrestling about the amount. Compared to the increase in 2019 to 4.1 million, the new surcharge is more difficult to meet. The total community levy is in principle the only one that finances the administration.
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