Friborg updates its 2025-2028 financial plan, with a cumulative excess of expenses of nearly 630 million francs. The result, “strongly negative”, confirms the “need to develop a program for cleaning up cantonal finances”, estimates the Council of State.
The latter was based, to determine the cumulative deficits until 2028, on medium-term forecasts of the evolution of cantonal finances as well as on an initial estimate of the impacts of the federal finance relief program for the State of Fribourg, the government said on Wednesday.
“These impacts remain approximate at this stage and will be refined when the detailed project to come from the Confederation is known,” the press release specifies. By virtue of the constitutional principle of balance, the 2025 budget, adopted in November by the Grand Council, shows a profit of 650,400 francs.
Rapid degradation
Beyond that, the situation is deteriorating rapidly, as repeated since the spring by the President of the Council of State and big financier Jean-Pierre Siggen. The projected budgets for 2026, 2027 and 2028 present respective deficits of 197.5 million, 221.8 million and 210.7 million, for a total of 629.3 million over the period.
The projections deviate “significantly” from the requirements of the cantonal Constitution. Furthermore, the results outlined show that the current fortune of the State, of which there is no longer a “free” part, will be “largely insufficient to cover the very important financing needs with its own resources”.
Plan in spring
“The negative development confirms the need to immediately develop a sanitation program,” notes the executive. It involves “strong and courageous” measures, both at the level of the Council of State and the Grand Council, in order “to maintain control of cantonal finances and to be able to take on the major challenges to come”.
To “sustainably” re-establish a “compliant” financial trajectory, the Council of State has established working groups. All avenues will be explored, “without taboos”. At the end of the work, the sanitation program will be put out for consultation during the spring. The Grand Council will decide in the fall.
This article was automatically published. Source: ats
