During the session on Tuesday, December 6, the deputies of the Lviv City Council approved the city budget of Lviv for 2023. The meeting took place in closed session, after which the press service of the city council reported on the specifics of the budget for the next year.
Thus, half a billion hryvnias will be directed to support the Armed Forces, and 700 million hryvnias will be directed to the heat supply program. In addition, in the budget, expenses for salaries of city council employees were reduced
As reported by the press service of the mayor’s office, one of the main priorities in it is the support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in particular, UAH 500 million is provided for the National Resistance Program. Also, the educational and cultural fields and ensuring the functioning of critical infrastructure remain important directions.
“The budget has several features, because it is the budget of a city in a country that is in wartime. The main priority of the budget is the allocation of UAH 500 million to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We also took a very important step and reduced expenses in the budget, in particular for the employees of the Lviv City Council – the number of employees was reduced by 10%, i.e. more than 200 employees. The third very important aspect is the preservation of funding for key programs, support for education and culture. The fourth aspect is that there are important programs that cannot be financed now, according to the decision of the Cabinet, because they are not critical. These programs will not be financed, but others will be instead,” said Andriy Moskalenko, the first deputy mayor of Lviv.
According to Victoria Dovzhik, director of the financial policy department, the goal of the city budget for 2023 is to ensure the smooth functioning of all important areas of Lviv MTG.
“This is a complex city budget under martial law. If we compare it with the way we planned the budget last year, there are actually UAH 2 billion of new expenses, which are caused by new realities. In particular, we actually have a 575 million hryvnias higher figure for the reverse subsidy today; we plan to spend 400 million more than last year on the heat supply program – for this year we have invested UAH 700 million, which is the largest amount for all years. This is due to the fact that tariffs for the population do not increase, but residents have a stable heat supply. In the same way, we understood that when the state budget was adopted, we reduced the educational subvention, that is, what goes to finance salaries in the field of education. We have to cover these funds, therefore, in addition to the educational subvention, we are planning UAH 460 million from this budget,” said Viktoriya Dovzhik.
According to her, there are risks that the budget may no longer be implemented.
“We understand that. At the same time, the budget is balanced today. Its main task, as a document of the Lviv city territorial community, is to ensure the uninterrupted functioning of the social, educational, and cultural spheres. After all, most of the budget is still basic things, such as salaries, energy sources, so that all our schools, kindergartens, sports, cultural, communal institutions that work in various fields have a stable salary. Our task is to make sure that there is light and warmth everywhere. Having adopted this budget, we have peace of mind that all the basic needs of the city economy will be provided,” the official said.