In the introduction to the Chambéry Municipal Council on November 4, 2024, Thierry Repentin, Mayor of the City, wished to share with elected officials and the public the potential impacts of the levies that the Government intends to impose on communities as part of the finance bill 2025.
Only the statement is authentic.
“Before opening the Municipal Council to debate the entire field of intervention of the community, we must address the national context in which we meet and in which we will have to manage the local community in the months and years future.
The measures in the finance bill (PLF) for 2025 – proposed by the Government – concerning local authorities will not have escaped anyone here. We have been rightly talking about it for several weeks in the national, regional and local media given the danger they represent for the management of our communities. The Government intends to make 5 billion euros in savings, sorry, on behalf of local authorities. In particular with the creation of a precautionary fund which would take up to 2% of the operating revenues of communities, like ours.
For Chambéry, so that everyone is aware of what this represents, this national decision would amount to a drain of 2.3 million euros each year on our operating revenue. 2.3 million is approximately the cost of building the new Bulle de Neige municipal nursery inaugurated this fall at Vetrotex. 2.3 million euros that will be taken from us each year is a sum comparable to the additional cost represented in 2024 by the salary measures decided by the State itself for the territorial civil service and which imposes this expense on us. To abruptly eliminate 2.3 million euros of revenue in Chambéry and several billion at the national level is to hinder local public service everywhere in the territory.
We must add to this measure the effect of the increase desired by the State of 4 points in the employer contribution to the retirement fund for territorial civil servants, a little more than 1 million additional euros per year in Chambéry. It would be necessary to add 280,000 euros for CCAS agents since ultimately, it is the subsidy from the City which will compensate for this additional expense.
To these reduced revenues, to this additional expenditure, we must add the reduction in the payment rate of the Value Added Tax Compensation Fund (FCTVA). We will no longer be reimbursed at 16.6% of our VAT, but at 14.6%. This will cause us to lose around 500,000 euros in annual investment revenue for the City.
We must also add the reduction in the Green Fund which could go at the national level from 2.5 billion euros to 1 billion euros in 2025. This year, for example, Chambéry was able to benefit from 1.3 million euros from this fund for the renovation of the Jean Rostand and Chambéry-le-Vieux schools and the building dedicated to the CCAS rue Paul Bert. This money that disappears is work that we will no longer be able to carry out.
For the municipality of Chambéry alone, if the Government does not review its copy, the bill could therefore rise to 5.1 million euros in total: 5.1 million euros less for the public service, for the economic activity of the territory and ultimately for the inhabitants of our city.
In recent years, however, the State has asked communities to do more: manage powers transferred without compensation, assume the local consequences of its disengagement from essential sovereign public services, in short, bear additional costs without additional resources. And, overnight, the ax falls: the State asks 5 billion euros in savings from communities to deal with the deficit that the State itself has created through its haphazard management in recent years.
Given the situation, it is essential that the State be transparent, take responsibility and clearly tell citizens which public services it wants to see disappear, reduce, resize downwards in the municipalities because – with the amounts of savings to be this scale – it is in these terms that the question will be asked.
We must not believe that only large communities are concerned, those which would be singled out as having “slipped” in their finances. I don't see why only large local authorities would be affected. We can be a large local authority while having very low tax bases. You can be a large local authority while having significant debt. You can be a large local authority while having very substantial social or public service expenditure. However, we put all large local authorities at the same level since they have 40 million euros in operating expenses without taking into account either the situation, the commitments of the community, or its level of wealth.
Our cities, particularly the capital cities, are those which bear the burden of centrality. That is to say, services and facilities which are provided, not only for the population of the city itself, but also for the population of the urban area and for certain facilities throughout the department, offering services to everyone. These are the services that will need to be reconsidered with their users, even if they are not all Chambérians.
And then, it must be emphasized that these measures are all the more unfair because they do not discriminate between communities which make efforts to change their spending and those which do not.
For our part, we will do everything we can to avoid this outcome which will distort the quality of the public service that we will provide in Chambéry, by acting alongside the associations of elected officials with whom we work closely. We are also counting on our parliamentarians in Savoie, deputies and senators, to warn about the situation of communities and the catastrophic consequences that this could have on local public services and on local public investment. I want to repeat here that 70% of public investments in our country are carried out by the municipal bloc (municipalities and intermunicipalities). If we restrict their capacities, we also restrict public procurement and therefore it is directly on employment in Savoie and local revenues that these reductions will be felt.
This drain will be carried out, for information, on four local authorities in Savoie: the City of Chambéry, the Agglomeration of Grand Chambéry, the City of Aix-les-Bains and the Department of Savoie. Everyone will thus understand that the territory of Chambéry will be doubly penalized since the City and the Agglomeration will be asked to contribute to this levy on revenues, to the increase in contributions to pension funds, to the reduction in the VAT compensation fund, notably.
It is in this context that we will have to work this evening and in the months to come. The worst is never certain: there may be pleasant surprises in Parliament. In the National Assembly, it is over but we can perhaps count on the Senate to act as the voice of the communities. Assuming that this finance bill is passed by both chambers and that it is not passed through the artifice of article 49 al. 3 of the Constitution which allows laws to be adopted without a vote that will have an impact on the daily lives of our fellow citizens. »
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