There’s a hole in the budget

A delay in government grants to the municipality could mean a cut to projects for the underprivileged.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Money (photo credit: Wikicommons)
Money
(photo credit: Wikicommons)
Money makes the world go round, we all know that, whether we like it or not. In the case of public moneys collected from taxpayers to finance the services they are entitled to, money – or in this particular case, the budget – is a crucial issue. Jerusalem, despite all its heavenly aspects, is not exempt from the mundane necessity of having a budget – preferably, a well-balanced one.
This is certainly a reasonable objective, but sometimes even the simplest and most commonplace goals can be achieved only through long and winding routes, only to discover at the end of the road that local efforts are not enough. In this specific case, Jerusalem’s current budget may not be able to support all the city’s approved needs and projects for the coming year.
“Imagine a family that started the year with a huge hole in their budget,” says a high-ranking municipal official in an attempt to illustrate the situation. “I know that happens a lot among private individuals, but in a public institution like the capital’s municipality, it is simply unacceptable.”
However, this is exactly the position the local administration is in at the moment, and there are no indications that any solution is on the horizon.
The immediate result might be (no surprise) to cut some of the projects aimed to help the city’s neediest residents.
The municipal budget is mainly composed of three different incomes. The first is property tax (arnona); then comes government participation; and the third is the municipality’s own revenues (such as fines).
There are two types of government funding, 75% of which is paid directly to municipal departments (such as welfare, education, absorption, industry, trade and labor) and 25% of which is a fixed grant that is determined in the national budget. Unlike the 75% participation, which is automatic, this sum – which was NIS 210 million this year – has to be approved separately. And since, following the government’s decision to call for Knesset elections on January 22, there is no national budget approved at the moment, the special grant to Jerusalem is highly compromised. So far, according to Deputy Mayor David Hadari (Habayit Hayehudi), president of the local finance committee, the “hole” is about NIS 50m., but it could be even more.
The finance committee is still preparing the 2013 budget, which – and this is the first time this sum is being revealed – will stand at NIS 4 billion, which will be presented for approval by the city council in the coming weeks. In the finance department at Safra Square, the high-ranking officials were convinced they had the perfect solution to the situation – a substantial cut in cultural events. But they were rapidly and firmly “convinced” that this was a very bad idea.
The reason? Mayor Nir Barkat – who ran and will probably run again on the ticket of an official who brought high-level cultural life back to the city – wouldn’t dream of cutting the culture budget, especially approaching an election year (scheduled for November 2013).
So if not from the culture budget and if, at least for the moment – with talk about a postponement of the Knesset elections due to the volatile situation in the country – the Finance Ministry doesn’t seem to provide too much hope, where will the money come from? Well, what about cutting special projects for the underprivileged? Bingo! Apparently, that is exactly what seems to be the solution being seriously considered by the municipal treasury and the finance committee.
Naturally, words of comfort are expressed, such as the promise that as soon as the money finally arrives in the city’s coffers, all these projects will be reinstated. Perhaps. But what is disturbing is the fact that in such a situation, those who have little enough already will be obliged yet again to pay the price.