“As was the case at the beginning of last year, we are working with a provisional budget. This means that we can only spend so that we can maintain the regular operations of the municipality. To put it bluntly, this means that we need the lights, the heating and the computers can switch on,” says Ried’s mayor Bernhard Zwielehner (ÖVP). As reported, around six million euros are missing from the Rieder city budget for this year. For the first time, Ried is a hardship compensation community.
In the past few weeks there has been a lot of juggling of numbers in the town hall. “We have to submit the budget, which includes the 19 hardship compensation criteria specified by the state of Upper Austria, to the Ried district administration. I think we will be finished with it in a few days,” Zwielehner said yesterday in an interview with OÖNachrichten.
For example, according to the city boss, the hardship compensation criteria stipulate that the city library can only cost 25,000 euros per year. “This is completely alien to life. Our library, which is frequented by countless people who do not live in Ried, costs the city around 250,000 euros per year. District towns such as Ried, Braunau or Schärding have a supply mandate for the entire district. These hardship compensation regulations are “Certainly not made for such district towns,” says Zwielehner clearly.
It is certain that there will be intensive negotiations with the state of Upper Austria. The library is by no means the only “institution” that causes people to leave. “Further examples are the leisure pool (minus 400,000 euros), the outdoor pool (minus 250,000 euros) and the boarding school run by the home building association (minus 160,000 euros). In addition, there are club subsidies provided by the municipality amounting to around 250,000 euros. The Rieder policy I can promise that we will do everything we can to support the clubs, because day will come there outstanding voluntary work every day,” says Zwielehner.
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Source: Nachrichten
