Local councils underfunded, says LMP

Budapest (MTI) – The opposition LMP party has proposed a new financing structure for local governments which would ensure councils were able to fulfill all their public duties.

Under the current system even cities with significant funds are only able to meet demands for basic services by using supplementary funding, Ferenc Gerstmar, a member of LMP’s presidium, told MTI on Saturday. As an example he mentioned Kecskemet, in central Hungary, which on Thursday had decided to ask the state for an extra 400 million forints (EUR 1.3m) for operating the city’s twenty educational institutions and a nursing home.

“If an otherwise well-functioning city like Kecskemet cannot service basic needs, one can only guess how thousands of small towns are doing,” Gerstmar said.

A new system should be introduced whereby councils have sufficient funding for good-quality public services and for creating an adequate environment for the local economy to grow, he said.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters