the essential
The revenue losses for Toulouse Métropole and the Department, planned in Barnier’s draft budget, promise to be colossal, according to an initial estimate from an association of local elected officials.
Cold shower for local authorities: municipalities, Departments and Regions. The government’s budgetary tightening is synonymous with severe cuts in spending with, likely, projects canceled or postponed.
How much are their revenue losses? The Intercommunalités de France association estimated the “deduction” for each community based on the announcement of a levy on operating revenues. This estimate, which the Minister of Territorial Partnership and Decentralization, Catherine Vautrin, said she contested, reveals cuts of a staggering amount.
The loss of revenue would thus be €13.9 million for Toulouse Métropole, which would be added to the city’s €13.8 million; for the departmental council, this amount is estimated at €32.5 million, and for the regional council at €51 million. The list drawn up by Intercommunalités de France also includes Sicoval (€1.3 million); Muretain Agglo (€2 million), Colomiers (€1.5 million) and Blagnac (€1.7 million).
No tax increase
“Our services will calculate the estimate of losses for Toulouse and the Metropolis,” indicates Jean-Luc Moudenc this Friday. The mayor is not providing an amount for the time being. And he is counting on Parliament to amend the finance bill. For him, it is therefore too early to say which policies will be impacted.
But it is certain that it will be necessary to “slash” to use the term of the tenant of the Capitol, and this on the eve of the adoption of the budgets. As such, the elected official defined three main lines: “no tax increase” and “little operating economy”. There remains the investments which will be “shifted” according to “prioritization”.
Scissor effect
For the Department, the pill is all the more bitter as it comes in a context of a sharp drop in revenue. Deprived of fiscal leverage, the departmental council sees its main resource, transfer taxes, fall due to the drop in activity in the real estate market. “In two years, the Department’s budget has been cut by €253 million in revenue,” recalled Sébastien Vincini on Thursday in a press release. And to this drop in revenue is added the increase in social spending, compulsory spending.
In this context, a new cut seems unthinkable to Sébastien Vincini: “if nothing is done, the Barnier budget will crush local authorities and what remains of solidarity policies in the country”. And with “the financial asphyxiation of the Departments, the entire local economy is at stake”.
