Meeting in a community council this Monday, December 16, 2024, the elected officials of the metropolis of Metz had to engage in a complex exercise: hold a budgetary orientation debate (DOB), preparatory and essential step for the realization of the 2025 budget, butwithout knowing what the allocations will be accurate information from the government, in the absence of a finance bill.
« We are in the most perilous economic uncertainty. The State picks our pockets while imposing additional expenses on us. He points the finger at local authorities while he imposes the rules,” protests Thierry HORY, vice-president of the metropolis responsible for finance.
In their version submitted to Parliament, the Draft Finance Law and Draft Social Security Finance Law (PLFSS), as well as the revision of the 2024 growth hypotheses for national VAT, impact the metropolis to the tune of €9 million in 2025, a sum to which will be added, each year, the equivalent of 3 additional points of the CNRACL rate [NDLR : Caisse Nationale de Retraites des Agents des Collectivités Locales]or €0.9 million per year, over the years 2026 to 2028. As a reminder, the drop in State allocations between 2013 and 2017 amounted, cumulatively, to €10 million spread over a period of 4 years, communities are therefore asked to make the same effort in one to two years instead of 4. This is thus a very strong deterioration of financial ratios, and in particular of the levels savings of the community, which will result, as well as a questioning of the balance of the next Primary Budget as it had been anticipated.
Extract from the summary of the report on the 2025 budgetary orientations
While “no new loan has been taken out by the metropolis since 2021 and the outstanding debt should therefore reach 158 million euros at the end of 2024”, as the VP of Finance specifies, the community would the choice to go into debt again, in two stages.
“We are going to make a new loan of 5 million for the 2024 main budget at the end of the year, within a few days. But, due to the significant reduction in debt carried out in recent years, the Eurometropolis’s debt is sustainable and makes it possible to envisage new borrowings in the future to finance the ramp-up of the investment budget. However, the stagnation of revenues coupled with the increase in expenditure requires prudence to preserve our balances, especially since it is impossible to say at this time what the next finance law will contain.
Intervention by Thierry HORY at the metropolitan council on 16/12/2024
In view of the gloomy economic situation, the community expects a stagnation of its revenues and an acceleration of expenses under the impact of inflation and the development of new public policies. Main budget operating expenditure is expected to reach €186 million, while revenue is estimated at €203 million. The gross savings generated would therefore be 17 million euros.
On the investment side, expenses should increase significantly to reach 118 million euros, due to the ramp-up of the Multi-Annual Investment Plan (PPI). With investment revenues expected at 45 million euros, a balancing loan of more than 55 million euros would be necessary in 2025.
The opposition is worried, and alerts
Jérémy ROQUES, opposition metropolitan councilor (left), first discussed the situation in the country, denouncing “the policies of successive right-wing liberal governments” and a “former government that François GROSDIDIER defended”, before to return to local budgetary questions:
“To this austerity imposed by the State, you have decided to add local austerity. However, we have the means to do otherwise, in particular by removing unnecessary policies. For example, a new increase of 400,000 euros for the Serpentine, whose budget continues to slip, now reaching almost 5.5 million euros in total, between the city and the metropolis.
There is also the creation of an AP [NDLR : autorisation de programme] concerning the studies and works of a private metropolitan network (RPM), to the tune of 5 million euros. The RPM is the unforeseen cost of security cameras, since it is the link between the future supervision center and the municipal cameras. This is in addition to the million euros spent on the deployment of video surveillance. »
Intervention by Jérémy ROQUES at the metropolitan council on 16/12/2024
Jérémy ROQUES ends his speech by mentioning possible savings to be made on the communication budget and river shuttles. “Savings? Yes, saving money is what you declare in your DOB without telling us in which area you want to make them,” adds Danielle BORI (left). If she admits that the “exercise is complicated”, she affirms that “no trail is traced in this DOB”.
The metropolitan councilor is primarily concerned about the impact of budget choices on social issues:
“There is an area absent in this document, as too often, that of the social question. It is a priority and must cross all our public policies. It is about social cohesion, the driving force behind the development of our territories. »
Intervention by Danielle BORI at the metropolitan council on 16/12/2024
For her part, Françoise GROLET, metropolitan councilor (RN), denounces a “punitive logic of previous governments, on the right but also on the left, which attack the local level” because they are incapable of “reforming themselves or tackling bad spending “.
The forecast impact of the announcements, which remains to be confirmed by the new government, represents a shortfall of 9 million euros from 2025 for the metropolis. Faced with these “dark clouds”, the metropolitan councilor calls for a change of course from the majority:
“The situation calls for a reaction, a reaction with responsibility. And there, in the budgetary orientation report, we read a sentence that we have been waiting for for a long time and that I have said several times: This situation requires us to refocus on our skills. Finally ! And you add, without reducing the level of service to the population and without increasing taxes. Obviously, it’s a relief for us. When I come back to skills, you say that we need to refocus. Which means you are scattered in areas that are not our responsibility. »
Intervention by Françoise GROLET at the metropolitan council on 16/12/2024
The advisor also wishes to “curb the costly commitments of punitive ecology”. “We will end up ecologically responsible but ruined. So let’s stop blaming the French who are already much more virtuous than some in other countries,” she adds.
“You therefore announce that you want to borrow more than 55 million euros. The 2024 budget year mobilizes a loan of 5 million euros in December. It is therefore an increase in debt of more than 1000% that you are proposing in this budgetary orientation report, where we see zero list of savings. »
Intervention by Françoise GROLET at the metropolitan council on 16/12/2024
“The debt is the tax of tomorrow,” recalls Françoise GROLET, who calls on the majority to “more responsibilities” as the initial budget approaches. This intervention will be Françoise GROLET’s last before the metropolitan council, the elected official having chosen to withdraw from her mandate. Marie-Claude VOINÇON should logically replace her.
