Nevskaya Concession Company, affiliated with United Russia deputy Vitaly Yuzhilin, will receive a shortfall of 3.5 billion rubles

Today, the Budget and Finance Committee of the Legislative Assembly will consider the governor’s amendment to the second reading of the draft budget for the upcoming three-year period. In the adjustment for the next 2012, three controversial infrastructure projects (two bridges and one tunnel) with a total cost of 6 billion rubles disappear de jure, and revenues also increase by 12.4 billion. Smolny financiers do not expect that next year, when Russians will need elect a president, a crisis will break out - a recession, in their opinion, will come after.

The head of the Finance Committee, Eduard Batanov, told reporters that the discussion at the BFK meeting of amendments to the 2012 budget on the eve of the December elections to the State Duma and the Legislative Assembly is “expected to be interesting,” just as “interesting” parliamentary electoral amendments are expected in Smolny. At the same time, the gubernatorial amendments seriously contradict the interests of some party members (recall that the head of Smolny, Georgy Poltavchenko, is the leader of the United Russia list in the elections to the local parliament). From the draft budget 2012, with adjustments, funding for the Oryol tunnel in the amount of 3.5 billion rubles disappears (a project of Nevskaya Concession Company LLC, affiliated with State Duma deputy United Russia member Vitaly Yuzhilin, for which the city budget under Valentin Matvienko planned to allocate 22 billion rubles over several years By the way, Mr. Yuzhilin won the primaries and will again go to the State Duma elections - Kommersant), the construction of the Novo-Admiralteysky Bridge (1.5 billion) and the crossing over Serny Island (1 billion rubles). This money is not earmarked for specific items, but is “spread out” based on other needs of the managers. The released funds this year will not be used to pay off the deficit (the planned figure is 31 billion, of which 6 will be repaid with account balances, bonds will be issued for the rest). Expenses, compared to the first reading of the budget, will increase by 14.1 billion rubles. Of this, 5.8 billion rubles will go to housing and communal services, 2.6 billion to education, 1.1 billion to healthcare, and another half a million to culture. 1.5 billion each will be spent on repairing elevators and roofs—for some reason, deputies especially like to promote themselves on these expenses.

In terms of income, next year is expected to be more than successful: the revenue forecast, compared to the first reading, has been increased by 12.39 billion, of which the increase in income tax will be 6.5 billion, on profit - by 1.7 billion, plus 2 .3 billion are expected to be received from the federal treasury. By chance, fines for traffic violations turned out to be unaccounted for: city financiers believed that they would go to the federal treasury, but almost half a billion rubles were planned to go to the city budget. The growth in revenues also includes the re-registration of Gazprom's subsidiaries in St. Petersburg, which has long been rumored (for example, about the Gazprom Export company). When asked who exactly was expected on the Finance Committee, Mr. Batanov joked: “A boy or a girl,” and did not comment on specific names for fear of scaring them off. The head of the Finance Committee emphasized that Smolny is not expecting a crisis, the approach of which only a lazy analyst did not mention in 2012. “Yes, there will be a crisis, but not next year, but the year after, and it will not be as avalanche-like as the previous one, but more protracted,” said Mr. Batanov. The fact that the city's economy will enter a recession in 2013 is evidenced by the fact that a deficit-free budget is planned for 2013 (in the absence of borrowing, it will be easier to survive negative events). If the economy rolls back earlier, then the government has a standard methodology, Mr. Batanov said, - cut capital expenditures and fulfill current ones.

Konstantin Andrianov

The 2012 budget has begun to hit the budget