The city of Freising will have to deal with a budget freeze of 20 percent in the coming year. The head of the finance department, Johannes Hutter, announced this measure on Monday in the finance committee – as a reaction to the financial gap in the budget for 2023, which has now grown to 60 million euros. The committee then recommended that the city council approve the budget, but with the said restriction.
The ban would mean a spending limit of the stated percentage for each individual budget item. Items in excess of this total would have to be approved individually by the Finance Committee as necessary. Exceptions would be personnel expenses and the district levy as well as sums for which the city has entered into a contractual obligation. According to Hutter, as further measures, new major projects in the city should only be tackled when the current ones have been completed and the follow-up costs of new projects should be better estimated in advance.
All of this is intended, among other things, to appease legal supervision, which according to Hutter was “not very pleased” with the city’s draft budget. From this side, the budget will probably only be approved under certain conditions. In addition to the budget freeze, these could include very far-reaching reporting obligations.
Five council members from the Greens, SPD and ÖDP had previously voted against the 20 percent ban. Rudi Schwaiger (CSU) then voted against the budget’s recommendation, including the ban.
Puzzling voting
Somewhat puzzlingly, the committee had previously voted on the new job plan for the city. The Greens had initially applied for the deletion of a total of three positions for the new event center at Munich Airport, but this was rejected by a vote of 7:5. However, the position plan, including the items criticized, was then rejected – also by a vote of 7:5.