Политика

Only 20 of all 29 councillors came to the emergency session on 14 February, at which the 2005 budget of the municipality was discussed and adopted. It turned out that some of the councillors were not informed about the meeting at all. The standing committees had also not considered the budget in advance.
The mandatory public discussion was made hours earlier the same day, but without much activity by the Velingrad public. During the public discussion, the newly elected mayor Fidel Beev and people from his team took part with their proposals.
The session adopted the report of the budget for 2004, prepared by the chief accountant of the municipality Hristo Savov. Last year the municipality spent 11,226,533 leva. The state subsidy was received at nearly 100%, and at the end of the year the municipality received from the state treasury funds, thanks to which a transitional balance was formed for 2005. The tendency of one resident of the municipality to have lower income from property taxes and non-tax revenues compared to the national average has been maintained. Badly affect the municipal budget incurred double obligations for cleanliness, stands unpaid water used by "Sports Properties and Beaches" and other outstanding amounts for over 200,000 levs. Counselor Dimitar Gadzhev pointed out the problem that for the salaries in "Sports Properties and Beaches" go 67,000 levs, and at the same time only 20,000 levs are allocated for sports in the presence of 15 sports clubs. Hristo Savov was adamant that before there were only 1000 leva for the sport, so the current 20,000 leva are a step forward. Deputy Chairman of the Municipal Council Mikhail Alexiev pointed out as a disadvantage of the budget that there is no development in it compared to 2004. The budget of the municipality of Karlovo grew by 36% compared to 2004. and is 17.5 million levs; the budget of Pazardzhik increased from 34 million levs to 37 million levs in 2005, and 9 million levs were provided for capital expenditures for 2005. at 3.8 million last year. At the same time, the municipality of Velingrad voted again on a passive budget, in which there are no funds for investments in infrastructure and again the priority is wages. A radical reform of the philosophy of the municipal budget is needed, M. Alexiev.
The 2005 budget. was voted on according to the administration's proposal. It amounts to 10,800,090 levs, of which 5,925,190 levs are state revenue and 4,154,900 levs are municipal revenue (a transitional remainder of 1,016,414 levs since 2004 is included here).
Elena Baeva