As the outline of its budget for the next year was recently unveiled, the Polish city of Lublin embraces the news with mixed feelings. The draft budget published on Thursday is seriously affected by changes to the tax system and different government policies, which have led to a significant reduction of the City's revenue stream.
It was made clear that the most important investment to look forward to, which will start being implemented in 2020 and will be backed by municipal funding, is the Metropolitan Station. For this project Lublin city will allocate over PLN 98 million. The money will go towards the construction of the station along with its communications system.
In addition, Lublin will begin the expansion of the school at Sławinkowska street in its the pre-school part and construction of a new wing of Primary School No. 52 on Felin. As planned, in 2020 the ongoing investments will be concluded, which covers the very important revitalization of the People's Park and the construction of a new school at Beryllium street.
Difficult financial situation for municipal budgets in Poland
The list of planned investments in Lublin is long, although there are also some that the city will have to give up on or postpone. As explained by the Mayor of Lublin Krzysztof Żuk on Facebook, 2020 will be a very difficult year financially, for the city budget of Lublin. Due to the government's economic policy, the city's revenues have fallen significantly while operating costs have increased and are expected to rise even more come the start of 2020. Therefore, the city will be unable to meet all the expectations of its inhabitants.
The local authority will, however, fulfil its obligation to raise the minimum wage to PLN 2,600, which applies to over 2,700 people working in local government units managed by Lublin. Żuk has also decided that increases of PLN 300 per person should be enough to cover all other employees of local government units. This amounts to over 10,000 working people, including those engaged in Lublin's education or social assistance.
As the Mayor of Poznan explained for TheMayor.EU last month, education remains a serious problem for local governments in Poland. Jacek Jaśkowiak underlined that the costs of the reform of the education system have been transferred to them. Local authorities are now forced finance any and all expenditures related to salary increases for teachers.
