Debate, Politics | Now the youngest in Bergen are paying the price for irresponsible management

It’s complete It is obvious that Bergen municipality has major financial challenges going forward.

At the town hall, the hunt for cuts is in full swing.

You don’t need one read so much in the newspaper to find out that there has been widespread financial unrest at the grassroots in large parts of the municipal organisation.

• The schools must make cuts that will obviously affect the students who most need extra resources in the school.
• The nurseries are experiencing a staffing crisis, which forces the directors to choose between breaking the staffing norm or blowing the budget.
• The cultural school is cutting concerts and performances, which have been a central part of the education of children and young people.

The reason is quite obvious.

The budget as Higherthe Center Party, the Progress Party, Bergenslisten, the Industry and Business Party and the Pensioners Party decided before Christmas, have unfortunately grossly underestimated what it actually costs to run a school, kindergarten and cultural school in Bergen in an expensive time.

They must share exactly that responsibility with the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, who largely budgeted for the same stubbornness of a number of services for children and young people, before they ran away from the city council offices.

They did so even though the accounts showed a large overspend.

Part of the debt must the new plural still fully take on its mantle.

In addition to underfunding several of the central services offered by the municipality, the new city council and the cooperation party chose to use up almost every available kroner.

Of an operating budget of NOK 26 billion, the city council planned a surplus of just over NOK 14 million. In other words, there is almost no buffer to handle any budget cracks as a result of higher prices.

On top of everything, the majority decided to finance large parts of the cut in property tax with an unspecified cut of NOK 85 million.

In other words: The city council postponed the most painful cuts, perhaps in the hope that the weekday would be easier in 2024, than what the forecasts indicated.

On the contrary. So far, the reality has turned out to be worse than feared.

In addition to they reveal the challenges of excessive expenses, incomes have also failed. Recently, the Finance Council had to report that lower tax revenue than expected means that the income is 52 million lower than budgeted.

The consequences are that principals, kindergarten managers and cultural school principals have to set priorities that they cannot actually vouch for as responsible conscientious professionals.

The city council has namelybecause they did not dare to make tough priorities last autumn, no other choice than to demand full budget discipline.

For the record: The leaders at the schools, kindergartens and the cultural school must therefore compensate for the lack of budget discipline shown by the elected representatives before Christmas. Yes, it is a thunderous paradox.

One each with a minimum of economic insight would have characterized the city budget as a high-risk project.

In such a situation, tough and difficult decisions are required. No one must believe that it is easy to cut around a hundred million in the municipality’s budget, without someone being inflicted with unpleasant pain.

The last one should get involved in such a situation, is to waste time on symbolic politics.

It is therefore ominous that the city council’s response to the financial crisis is to get rid of two mini-agencies that can save the municipality minimal expenses.

The two in question the agencies, the City Architect and the Climate Agency, have a large part of their expenses locked in salary expenses, which the municipality cannot get rid of, even if the employees move into some other open office landscape.

The reason for taking the lives of the two mini-agencies is hardly to save money in particular, but rather to gain some power points in circles where knowledge of architecture and knowledge of the climate are considered insulting words.

While other citieslike Oslo, Stavanger, Trondheim and Kristiansand copy Bergen, and acquire a city architect, well Bergen to remove both the future-oriented professional environment.

That the city council’s platform contains beautiful promises about investment in architecture, and promises about a more knowledge-based climate policy, looks strange in such a context.

Can it happen that what the city council actually wants in terms of architecture and climate is not particularly knowledge-based, and that it might be easier to do the job without a strong professional environment with specialist expertise?

It’s just malicious speculation.

Therefore I shall rather end with some perfectly well-intentioned advice.

In any case, what the city council must now do is listen to the best financial expertise they have. Anyone who has had difficulties with the economy knows that it can be a demanding round.

When schools, kindergartens and cultural schools, and certainly many other municipal fields, quite obviously need more money than they get, good advice becomes even more expensive.

Especially in one situation where one has actually already pledged all the money, and postponed the painful cuts.

If the municipality is to both keep the budget and provide a sound offer for children and young people, it will take a completely different pace than what the city council has shown so far.

A good start is to create a more responsible budget, which at least ensures the services of the youngest and oldest in the city in a responsible way.