The Neuchâtel deputies approved on Tuesday without opposition the cantonal budget, which provides for a profit of 30 million francs. As part of a compromise, parliamentarians accepted a global amendment which notably plans to increase health insurance subsidies.
In the vote, the budget was accepted with 92 yes and 7 abstentions. “The result is gratifying and makes it possible to maintain investments at a high level, in order to meet the many challenges of modernizing and cleaning up the canton’s infrastructure,” Crystel Graf declared on Tuesday.
The State Councilor in charge of Finance, however, called for “great caution”, because the result depends above all on extraordinary revenues (+40 million linked to federal equalization and 27 million payments from the SNB). She added that the costs in terms of health, social, training and mobility are only increasing.
A compromise found in committee
In committee, the deputies agreed on a compromise. This agreement provides that through modest targeted budget reductions, it will be possible to free up resources for other public policies deemed priorities.
This global amendment was accepted by 68 yes, 25 no and 7 abstentions. It ultimately improves the budget by around 200,000 francs.
The vast majority of PLR deputies ultimately opposed it, in response to the refusal to reduce the tax scale for individuals by 1% in 2025. The VertPOP group’s proposal to increase the tax coefficient from 125 to 124, to preserve the autonomy of municipalities, was preferred.
>> Read on this subject: The Neuchâtel Grand Council prefers to lower the tax coefficient rather than taxes
This variant improves the budget by 300,000 francs, because its cost is 5.9 million, compared to 6.2 million if the reduction in scale had been adopted.
Nearly 150 million investments
The commission’s compromise also made it possible to increase the envelope for health insurance subsidies by 1.5 million francs, to reach a total – also financed by the Confederation and the municipalities – of 151 million.
The 2025 budget provides for net investments of 147 million francs, an increase of 22.6%. Operating income (nearly 2.5 billion) should increase over one year by 4.4% and expenses by 3% to 2.5 billion. An operating deficit of 36 million is expected. The payroll exceeds 500 million francs.
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Swiss
