Saratov authorities claim that the regional government compiled the city budget without taking into account the interests of citizens

The head of the city of Saratov, Oleg Grishchenko, criticized the governor’s position regarding the formation of the budget of the regional center. According to him, the regional government does not take into account all the needs of the city, which lack about 8.7 billion rubles to cover. Experts support the opinion of the city mayor, also noting that the regional budget plan for next year “raises only criticism.” The government does not comment on the claims.

“Once again, the regional authorities did not provide the municipality with the required amount of financial assistance to solve the most important urban problems,” said the head of Saratov, Oleg Grishchenko, at a meeting of the conciliation commission to finalize the draft law of the Saratov region “On the regional budget for 2012.” According to him, in the process of preparing the draft budget, structural units of the Saratov administration provided the regional government with calculations of the minimum need for budgetary allocations, but have still not received any response to them.

Thus, from the local budgets’ own sources of income, the minimum amount required by the municipality to fulfill all obligations was 11.1 billion rubles, and the regulatory need for financing is approximately 16.3 billion rubles. However, when forming the draft consolidated budget of the region for 2012, the government included expenses (at the expense of the city’s own sources of income - Kommersant) of only 2.2 billion rubles, so the main financial document of the region planned 14 billion rubles less expenses than required by the regional center. The total amount of municipal expenses, including expenses through interbudgetary transfers (2.5 billion rubles - Kommersant), was calculated at 4.8 billion rubles.

The head also noted that the government did not take into account a number of aspects of the city’s activities. In particular, the regional leadership did not provide for expenses for city improvement in the amount of 4.4 billion rubles and for housing and communal services, which require approximately 2.5 billion rubles. In addition, expenses for healthcare (1.1 billion rubles needed) and social policy (82.3 million rubles) are not indicated. In addition, the city needs to service municipal debt in the amount of 315 million rubles, direct budget investments in capital construction projects, which require 1.5 billion rubles, and purchase preschool institutions - 157 million rubles. The total amount of expenses not taken into account by the government is more than eight billion rubles. “We are missing about 8.7 billion rubles,” Deputy Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Saratov Administration Angela Sorokina explained to Kommersant.

As for income, the total volume of projected tax and non-tax revenues could amount to 7.4 billion rubles, which, according to financier estimates, satisfies only 45.8% of all financial obligations of the regional center.

Financiers of the regional government have calculated that if the city leadership fulfills its obligations for the above amount of 2.2 billion rubles, then the mayor’s office will have retained earnings in the amount of 5.1 billion rubles. This, according to Mr. Grishchenko, “is not true and contradicts the Budget Code of the Russian Federation, which enshrines the principle of budget reliability (the realistic calculation of budget revenues and expenses).”

He also believes that underestimating the expenditure side of local budgets deprives the municipality of the right to receive subsidies to support measures to ensure balanced budgets.

City Duma deputy Viktor Markov fully supports the position of the city authorities. “This is not the first year when unfavorable financial and budgetary conditions have formed for Saratov; this has been going on for 20 years already,” he notes. According to him, Saratov collects about 2/3 of all taxes in the region, but receives only about 25%. “Unfortunately, according to budget legislation, a city without a regional government cannot create a normal budget for itself,” explained Mr. Markov. — And relations between the city and the region are traditionally cold. The city criticizes the governor, the government gets offended with him and begins to squeeze the budget of the regional center.”

“The city doesn’t have enough money - this is objective, and the parameters of the 2012 budget only cause criticism,” regional Duma deputy Leonid Pisnoy told Kommersant. — All the deputies of the regional Duma from Saratov and almost the entire city leadership were present at the conciliation commission. “I believe that we managed to convince the budget conciliation commission to increase the amount for the city by at least 2 billion rubles.” Commenting on the fact that the city budget still does not have enough funds to cover all expenses, Mr. Pisnoy explained that “there has been a decrease in a number of indicators, but the main thing is that we were heard; what is needed now is not tactics, but strategy.”

During the day, the Ministry of Finance of the Saratov Region Government was unable to comment on the claims of the head of Saratov.

Andrey Shenin

The governor deprived the mayor