Association of Ukrainian Cities calls on President to preserve reverse subsidies for communities
Village, town and city mayors appealed to the President of Ukraine to keep the reverse subsidy funds in community budgets in 2025 to jointly protect Ukrainian citizens from rapid tariff increases or disruption of the heating season, power outages and lack of critical medical care.
This is stated in an official appeal published by the Association of Ukrainian Cities on its website, Censor.NET reports.
According to the Association, the Cabinet of Ministers in the draft Law "On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2025", reg. No. 12000, initiated the withdrawal of reverse subsidy funds from the revenues of community budgets, which is planned to amount to UAH 12.9 billion in the next budget year for 189 communities.
"The heads of large and small communities appealed to the President of Ukraine to preserve the reverse funds in local budgets. And it is right to work together, strengthen each other, and find common solutions. Kyiv has no reverse. There is no 64% of personal income tax in the Kyiv budget, only 40%. But I also join my colleagues and ask to leave the reverse funds, 64% and the single tax in the revenues of communities," supported the statement of the mayors the Chairman of the Association of Ukrainian Cities, Mayor of Kyiv Vitalii Klytschko.
The appeal emphasizes that the existing heat supply system, without compensation for the difference in tariffs, with 65% of the revenue of enterprises withdrawn, with a moratorium on raising tariffs and with UAH 64 billion of state debt for services already provided, without maintaining reverse subsidies in community budgets, will stop heat supply during the heating season or rapidly raise tariffs.
"We must be ready to provide communities with autonomous power supply, invincibility points, special equipment for power supply to critical facilities, and compensate for the difference in tariffs to heat and water supply companies so that the 2024/25 heating season can be completed without raising tariffs for the population, and for this purpose, the reverse subsidy must be preserved in the budgets of village, town and city councils," the authors emphasize.
The Association notes that people's deputies of Ukraine also systematically oppose this position of the Government. A total of 68 people's deputies jointly appealed to Deputy Prime Minister for Recovery Oleksii Kuleba to preserve the reverse subsidy funds in community budgets.
The authors believe that an additional subsidy for the exercise of powers of local governments in the de-occupied, temporarily occupied and other territories of Ukraine that have been negatively affected by Russia could be a source of UAH 12.9 billion of reverse subsidies in local budgets. While the planned figure for 2024 is about UAH 34 billion, Annex 5 of the draft State Budget of Ukraine for 2025 plans expenditures of UAH 51.2 billion, which are not even distributed among communities.
