Budget for 2025 presented

While the general conditions have deteriorated massively, the need for investment is higher than ever. This is how the challenge of drawing up a budget for the coming year can be summarised. In their budget speeches, Mayor Michael Gerdhenrich and City Treasurer Thomas Wulf outlined what has been achieved so far, the current financial situation and the plans for the coming years. Both emphasised that the external developments of recent years, over which the city has no influence, are challenging, citing the pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and high inflation, for example.

Important investments in infrastructure
"What sounds like the challenges of a few decades have been thrown at us in the last 4 to 5 years alone," explained the mayor at the beginning of his speech. Nonetheless, essential things need to be driven forward and completed. The modernisation and expansion of Beckum's schools, for which around 70 million euros have been budgeted in the coming years alone, is a priority. "The modernisation and expansion of Beckum's school landscape (...) is something [we] are tackling with determination and with an unprecedented investment package."

All 4 districts are being further developed. Vellern and Roland, for example, will be given central village squares with a higher quality of life as well as new building areas. In Beckum, the construction of the new fire and rescue station, "probably the most expensive single project in Beckum's history", is being pursued with great vigour. In Beckum, an integrated urban development concept (ISEK) is being drawn up, with a key project being the modernisation and content-related linking of the town museum with its neighbouring building at Markt 2. In Neubeckum, the leisure centre with the newly designed municipal library will be remodelled to make it barrier-free, and the schoolyard of the Rosa Parks comprehensive school and the outdoor swimming pool will be renovated. In addition, 4 daycare centres will be built over the next few years and the Jahnstadion will be refurbished (see also list below).

Planned annual result
The earnings plan for 2025 shows income of 124.6 million euros. This is offset by expenses of 135.1 million euros. The bottom line is a deficit of around 10.5 million euros. The high expenses are due, among other things, to an 82 per cent increase in the city's own contribution to child daycare compared to 2019 (while parental contributions have only increased by 4 per cent since then) and an increase in social transfer expenses (especially for youth welfare). On the revenue side, trade tax of 22.5 million euros, key allocations of 18.1 million euros and the municipal share of income and sales tax of 25.2 million euros will have an impact. In order to notionally balance the budget, withdrawals from the equalisation reserve (8.68 million euros) and the general reserve (1.75 million euros) are planned. As things stand at present, it is necessary to take out loans for the planned investments. The treasurer makes it clear: "We are not alone in this situation." Neighbouring municipalities are in a very similar situation; these are not home-made problems. It is only because of the legal adjustments to the budget law that the city is not currently threatened with budget security.

Differentiated assessment rate planned for property tax
Once the property tax reform comes into force, nothing should change for the city of Beckum on the revenue side (revenue neutrality). In order to avoid placing an additional burden on citizens in terms of housing, the mayor and treasurer are proposing differentiated rates of assessment for property tax to the council, relying on the legal certainty of the new state law. Standardised assessment rates would have meant an additional burden of 1 million for Beckum's residential properties. The city is adopting the assessment rates of 331 per cent for property tax A, 607 per cent for residential properties and 1,110 per cent for non-residential properties, which have been declared as revenue-neutral. What the property taxes look like in each individual case depends on the respective assessed amount.

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The following major investments (from EUR 500,000) are planned for 2025:

• Around 1.634 million euros will be spent on the new Beckum fire and rescue station in 2025, totalling over 54 million euros.
• The roof of the adult education centre is being renovated at a cost of around 1.73 million euros. A lift is also to be installed there.
• 500,000 has been earmarked for the construction of the new Sonnenschule in 2025, which will cost over 26 million euros in total.
• A total of 1.85 million euros is being invested in the realisation of the feasibility studies for the Albertus Magnus Grammar School and the Friedrich-von-Bodelschwingh School.
• 3.65 million euros have been budgeted for the refurbishment of the Neubeckum public library and leisure centre. The ISEK project is being subsidised with over 2 million euros.

Next steps
The parliamentary groups will now move on to the budget consultations. The budget statutes are to be adopted at the council meeting on 17 December this year.

Budget