Five questions for Alderman Bert Bejas on the 2022 budget
Today, Wednesday, Nov. 10, the Kerkrade City Council is meeting to discuss the 2022 budget. They will do so in a special council meeting that can be followed from 2 p.m. via a live stream on this website.
During this budget meeting, all political parties will have extensive space to express their opinions on the draft budget presented by the College of Mayor and Aldermen. They can also make a proposal to adjust parts of the budget. Ultimately, it is up to the City Council to adopt the 2022 budget.
If you are reading this, you may be wondering what exactly a municipal budget is and why it is such an important document. We can also imagine that you are curious about the topics it contains for next year? Alderman Bert Bejas, portfolio holder for Finance, is happy to tell you more about it and answer 5 questions about the 2022 budget.
1) What kind of document is a municipal budget anyway?
The budget is also called the municipality's housekeeping book. It contains the income and expenses of a municipality. Part of our money, of our income, we need for our mandatory expenses. These are expenses that must be made every year. Expenses where we don't have a direct choice. Compare it to your fixed expenses. For the other part of our income, we can choose where to spend it. In a budget we write down what we want to spend our money on. So in Budget 2022, you can see what choices the municipality is making for the coming year.
2) So what choices will the congregation make next year?
It would go too far to write down here all the financial choices of the municipality for 2022. Therefore, I would like to tell you what are the main choices we have made as a College of Mayor and Aldermen in this budget. We call these the spearheads of our budget. The spearheads for 2022 are health & vitality and safety. With Vie - Living on the Move, we invest in programs for healthy and vital living, from young to old. So in addition, we put extra money into making our streets, neighborhoods and the city as a whole even safer. We also choose to set aside money to realize Het Martin Buber, full-fledged secondary public education in Kerkrade, when we receive a positive decision from the Ministry of Education.
3) Working for health & Vitality and for a safer city, that's not new, is it?
That's right. We have already set our course in recent years for a future where health & vitality and safety are paramount. We confirm that course with this budget. But that's not surprising. After all, it takes some time before you achieve the desired results; before people start living healthier and more vital lives and safety in our city is up to par. These are not issues that you only have to spend money on for one year and then you're done with them. We call them long-term developments. They are developments that we have to keep investing in and working on year after year. We certainly don't do that alone as a municipality, by the way. We do this together with advisory councils and social partners. But especially together with entrepreneurs and with you as inhabitants. After all, this is about your city, your safety, your health and your future.
4) Speaking of residents and business owners, what do the financial choices the municipality makes in 2022 mean for the wallets of residents and business owners?
It might be good to first explain that the vast majority of a municipality's revenue consists of money we receive from the state. In addition, part of our revenue consists of the taxes and fees that residents and business owners pay. So the annual amount that residents pay in OZB (that is the tax for homeowners), for the collection of waste and the use of the municipal sewer system, ends up in the account of the municipality. The municipality can then use this to pay for developments in and for the city. Developments that contribute to a safer neighborhood, for example. Every year in December the rates for the OZB, garbage and sewer for the new year are set and then we know what approximately the cost per family will be. We also call this the tax burden. The picture to the right shows the average burden burden for 2021/2022 for a family in Kerkrade. Kerkrade's municipal council has decided not to increase municipal charges for residents and business owners in 2022. The average burden burden for a family will therefore remain the same as in 2021. We choose this because we know that 2022 will already be expensive enough for most people because of rising energy prices.
5) So the municipality does not increase taxes for residents and business owners in 2022, but can allocate more money to health & vitality, safety and The Martin Buber. So is the municipality doing so well financially?
Despite the turbulent times behind us, Kerkrade has a good financial outlook for the future. We have had financial windfalls that we have set aside. We are pleased that this gives us a healthy financial base and allows us to face the future with confidence.