Grafing’s mayor Christian Bauer (CSU), as a former treasurer, can look back on a long financial history of his city. So when he speaks of “one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult budget,” as he did on Tuesday evening in the finance committee, that may mean something. And indeed: A little later, chamberlain Veronika Kainz just put the bad news together.
The first, namely the withdrawal from reserves, which was unavoidable this year, was still bearable at a good one million euros. All the more far-reaching, on the other hand, is the perspective component: With this year’s access, the reserve pot is empty. In the future, the city can only get money on the credit market.
The city of Grafing wants to take out loans of five million euros
She is already making heavy use of those in the current year. According to the approach, it should be a total of five million euros. The level of debt jumps from 11.5 million euros to 19.6 million within a year. “That makes an increase of around 70 percent,” calculated CSU local chairman Florian Wieser warningly. “I actually wish for something else.” Nevertheless, the increase is not surprising, pushed SPD city councilor and third mayor Regina Offenwanger afterwards. “We said goodbye to most of the posts here, that’s the reflection now.”
These items include, for example, the 2.4 million euros that are estimated this year for the acquisition of the vocational school property, the renovation of the town hall with 1.2 million euros or the purchase of the old railway house at Hauptstraße 25 in Grafing station . The redesign of the playground in the school center costs 400,000 euros. The city subsidizes the Seniorenhaus Foundation with 250,000 euros. A good 210,000 euros are due for renovation measures in the middle school. After all, bills of almost 1.8 million euros for the children’s center in Forellenstrasse and the 750,000 euros for the purchase of land for the underground car park on Hans-Eham-Platz can still be settled with household leftovers from the past year.
Mayor Christian Bauer considers the amount of the district levy to be “absolutely unnecessary”
But, and this is of course also part of the truth, the city does not have everything under control. “We are expecting an increase of 5.5 percent in personnel costs,” explained Bauer. “That means an additional 400,000 euros.” The city’s energy costs would probably increase by around 800,000. And anyway, the district allocation. The amount was “absolutely unnecessary,” Bauer railed. Grafing is paying more than a million euros more than last year. “If that doesn’t change, we’re threatened with financial collapse!”
Such scolding towards Ebersberg is now part of the folklore in the Grafing town hall. But there is not only one perspective in this matter either: the levy is also increasing because Grafing wants to build a vocational school financed by the district. And the fact that Grafing is worse off than in the previous year in a district comparison is not the case either. In the district allocation ranking of the 21 district municipalities, the city ranks 13th, as it did back then.
Uncertainties are part of the budget
Of course, a budget is always characterized by uncertainties. Who knows whether the estimate of 5.8 million euros from trade tax at the end of the year is actually in the books? Or maybe a few hundred thousand euros less.
But in Grafing the problem is partly home-made. Example in the form of a request from Green City Councilor Sepp Biesenberger: He was surprised why 181,000 euros were suddenly estimated for the start-up center. “The decision in the city council was something with 70,000 euros.” Brief consideration by Mayor Bauer, then his answer: Yes, the objection is justified. Construction work is not planned. The 181,000 euros will probably not be needed completely. This will be corrected before the budget decision in the city council in March.
Of course, such corrections do little to change the outlook for the coming years. “We just have to say goodbye to ‘everything is great’ and ‘everything is noble’,” said CSU boss Wieser. Should that be forgotten before the next decisions are made, the account balance should take care of things: The investment budget for the current year is around twelve million euros. According to the financial plan, it should be around eight million euros next year and only around six million euros in the year after next. The dark red end of the financial plan that runs until the end of 2026: a debt of more than 27 million euros. A problem solved at Rotter Straße 8 is not even included.