In the large community, finances are traditionally a sensitive issue, Vaterstetten is considered chronically underfunded, to put it politely. But just in year two of the great crisis caused by the pandemic, there is no sign of a crisis in the combing, on the contrary. For this year, the town hall is expecting record-breaking additional income: the plus at the end of the year could even be around one and a half million euros.
Treasurer Markus Porombka named this sum in the main and family committee. Almost exclusively one single item in revenue is responsible for the positive development: the trade tax. The community is expected to earn around 8.25 million euros here, maybe even a quarter of a million more. That would then be two million over budget, the corresponding budget estimate is 6.5 million.
That puts the revenue increase somewhat into perspective, as the finance department points out: “This positive news in itself should not hide the fact that the business tax revenue is still well below the pre-crisis level,” says the report to the council members. In fact, in the pre-Corona year 2019, Vaterstetten had the best result so far for business taxes: eleven million euros, 9.5 million were planned. This value, plus / minus 100,000 euros, had always been the case in the previous three years. What paid off for Vaterstetten in the pandemic year: Thanks to the compensation payments from the Corona stimulus package, which are based on the income from previous years, the municipality was even able to post 9.67 million euros on the budget item for trade tax in 2020.
The surprisingly good result this year is still a long way from that. Nevertheless, it cannot be overlooked that the industry in the large community is apparently picking up speed again after the crisis year. If you calculate the pure trade tax income without compensation payments, the sum is more than 23 percent of the previous year’s value, according to the finance department.
Elsewhere you are a little closer to the sums planned when the budget was drawn up. There is almost a precision landing with the property tax, 4.24 million were planned, the current forecast is 4.27 million euros. It is similar for the income tax replacement benefit, instead of 1.51 million euros it will probably be 1.51 million euros. The municipality’s share of sales tax is expected to be a good 100,000 euros more than planned, namely 1.3 million.
In contrast, the share of income tax is expected to be down by around 350,000 euros, so that at the end of the year the figure will be 20.65 million. According to Porombka, these shortfalls are mainly due to the weak first two quarters. During this period there was even more short-time working, and the associated loss of income for employees is also reflected in tax revenue.
There is a more gratifying minus on the expenditure side, personnel costs should be a good 800,000 euros this year below plan. But what – this is the less positive news – was mainly due to the fact that not all vacancies could be filled due to a shortage of skilled workers. Building maintenance could be around 150,000 euros less than planned by the end of the year.
Even with the larger investments, you will not be able to implement everything that was planned. The largest single item is the broadband expansion, for which the budget is estimated at two million euros – but the measure is currently still in the planning phase. A planned land purchase of one million euros will no longer take place this year, other smaller measures are less advanced than planned, so that less has to be spent here too.
However, this is firstly just a shift into the future, and secondly, it is almost exactly compensated for by the fact that another project that would have brought in money for the community is also stalling: the sale of the land in the new industrial park on Philipp-Maas-Weg. A good five million euros are available for 2021 under the item land sales in the asset budget. “We won’t get that again this year,” said Porombka. For the municipal council, the balanced forecast means that it will probably not have to adopt a supplementary budget. The treasurer’s conclusion: “It is stabilizing.”