Neuried: The municipality does not have that much money and has to save – Munich district

Whether someone is poor or rich is sometimes shown by the little things. For example on a few flower pots. Or more precisely: the question of whether you can afford it. In the Neuried building committee, the municipal councilors recently discussed whether planting balconies on the new town hall, including an irrigation system, is really necessary for 13,000 euros. The debate was quite extensive and symptomatic of the community in the west of Munich. In the end, the members of the committee decided against it. One wants to consider whether greening in front of the town hall would do the same. It would be poured by the rain, that’s cheaper. The Neurieder have to save, strictly speaking they have to turn over almost every euro. It has almost always been like this. And that’s not always a disadvantage.

Neuried and Graefelfing – the financial gap between the two neighboring communities in the Würm Valley could hardly be greater. While the large and prosperous Gräfelfing starts the new financial year with 260 million euros in reserves, the small and poorer Neuried had to struggle last year to even get a balanced budget. At the beginning of the budget deliberations, 1.8 million euros were missing in the cash register to cover all expenses.

The people of Gräfelfinger can afford to rush through the budget in two public municipal council meetings and decide on major investments in construction projects. In Neuried, the municipal councils go through item by item of each planned issue and scrutinize them. In the first budget session, it took two and a half hours just for the funds required by the building authority. There was also a discussion about spending on the design of the large square behind the old town hall in the center of the town. Ultimately, it was about 5000 euros that one wants to afford in order to achieve more quality of stay, including a park bench.

“We have learned to save,” says Mayor Harald Zipfel (SPD). After all, the tense financial situation has been with Neurieder for many years. In the wealthy Munich commuter belt it is more of an exception and compared to Gräfelfing, for example, but also to Grünwald and Unterföhring, some of which have hundreds of millions on the high edge, a completely different world.

“Saving is not a bad thing,” says Michael Zimmermann, spokesman for the CSU parliamentary group. You look twice to see whether an output is useful and necessary. The Neurieder now do it meticulously. The municipality did not want to pay for the costs of a charging station for an electric bus, for example, which the district wants to operate. After all, the municipality would not have to pay for refueling at the gas station for other buses, argued the municipal council. The county is now paying for it. “Sometimes you have to be persistent,” says Zimmermann.

Showing backbone when it comes to saving was also proven in the eyes of the Neurieder municipal councils when deciding on mobile air filter devices for classrooms. The committee decided against purchasing the devices. That was quite courageous, because parents sometimes vehemently demand it. However, studies on the effect of the systems, which are intended to filter corona viruses from the air, did not convince the municipal councils. In some places such devices have already been discarded in basements. To date, its effectiveness is controversial. And even if parents in Neuried have a different opinion: the municipal council feels confirmed that they have made the right decision. Instead, the municipality is now investing in permanently installed air filters for some classrooms that overheat in summer, because they also have a cooling function. “It’s not just about what you can afford, but also what is sustainable,” says Mayor Zipfel.

Open detailed view

A lasting decision for him was the majority decision of the municipal council last year not to build a new town hall in the town center. Instead, the municipality bought the office building in the commercial area, where parts of the administration are already housed. “There is no wood, there is little steel and few workers available due to the corona pandemic,” says Zipfel. The new town hall could never have been built in the planned period and also not at the estimated cost. “It was definitely a sustainable decision.” In any case, the construction costs are not galloping away. However, not everyone in the municipal council sees it the way the mayor does. Michael Zimmermann (CSU) considers the purchase price of the office building to be too high and investments must also be made in the existing building.

The debate on the town hall makes it clear that the will to save is cross-party, but not everyone agrees where and to what extent savings should be made. For Robert Hrasky (Bündnis Zukunft Neuried/BZN), who is behind the town hall decision and sees himself as a “warner” when it comes to spending money, there is a clear principle: everything that the legislature is actually responsible for should do not automatically pay the municipality. This includes, for example, tablets for primary school children, which the Neuried municipal council will not finance.

The challenge is to keep the balance, says third mayor Dieter Maier from the Greens

Saving can’t just be talked about. It also carries a risk, says Dieter Maier, Third Mayor (Greens). Namely the risk of no longer being able to fulfill tasks that a community has to perform. For example, the traffic calming measures in the town center that had been planned for years had to be postponed four times, as did necessary renovations to the municipal property and road construction measures. The longer you wait, the more expensive it gets. “Staying in balance” is the challenge when it comes to saving, says Maier – weighing up the desired concert and the compulsory program while always keeping an eye on creative solutions. In order to determine the need for refurbishment of the municipal property, for example, the municipality did not place an expensive order with an external service provider, but instead worked with a university that made small research projects out of it.

Wealthy rural districts such as Gräfelfing, Grünwald and Unterföhring are not familiar with such financial struggles. Record budgets are being set up here again and again, and trade tax revenue has so far been bubbling up. But a lot of money also means a lot of work. In the municipality of Gräfelfing, the administration is “clearly working on the attack,” Mayor Peter Köstler (CSU) recently emphasized. The major projects also have to be completed. On top of that, the tide can turn. The municipality of Unterföhring shows how quickly this can happen. For years, generous investments have been made and numerous projects are also planned for the future, including a town hall of an all-round sustainable ecological standard for an estimated 50 million euros. But now the Unterföhringer have to pull the brakes. The investments are shrinking the reserves, local councils have recently urged more prudence when spending money and the planned new sports park for 100 million euros was canceled in view of rising construction costs and an uncertain financial situation since the pandemic.

Open detailed view

In Neuried, on the other hand, there is just good news. With a surprising plus of around 15 million euros in trade tax revenue, the municipal councils are entering the next round of the budget debate next Tuesday. The Neurieder otherwise play in a different league at the post. They expected around five million euros in revenue. For Mayor Harald Zipfel it brings “some relaxation”, but he still has doubts about the reliability of the figures. The sum is still a preliminary result and it is also unclear whether this is a slip or a trend. In any case, it does not change anything in the economy mode. “We will continue to discuss.”