The 10 billion public spending cuts scheduled for 2016 they will not concern transfers to municipalities.
This was announced by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi at the end of this morning's meeting at Palazzo Chigi with Anci, the Association of Italian Municipalities. However, it still remains to be decided how to distribute the 1,2 billion cuts that the Stability law imposes on Municipalities for this year (another billion relates to the cut in transfers to the provinces and metropolitan cities).
Il Def of "2015-2017 will not contain additional cuts to those" already decided with the Stability law, said the president of the Anci, Piero Fassino, explaining that "Matteo Renzi, with whom the misunderstandings were overcome, said he was willing to positively resolve the issue of the drop in revenue for some Municipalities due to the transition from the Imu to the Tasi: in 2014 an equalization fund was from 625 million and now the government has said it is available for a solution to this problem”.
The Municipalities then “confirmed their willingness to abide by the agreement on the division of the cuts on the metropolitan cities – continued Fassino -, but at the same time they made an objective observation, namely that that agreement is particularly onerous for Rome, Florence and Naples. So the mayors are asking not for a redefinition of the agreement and the extent of the cut, which remains unchanged, but for a way, through a different division between the different cities or with other mechanisms, to reduce the impact on Rome, Florence and Naples. We will discuss this in a meeting with metropolitan cities today to define a proposal that we will bring to next Wednesday's meeting".
THE BOLOGNA-FLORENCE DERBY
For the moment, therefore, the derby between Bologna and Florence remains open. Yesterday the mayor of the Emilian city, Virginio Merola, had accused his Florentine colleague and party mate in the Democratic Party Dario Nardella not to represent all the Italian municipalities, urging him to resign as vice president of the Anci. “Numbers are numbers”, replied Nardella, who in recent days had complained about the largest cuts imposed to the metropolitan city of the Tuscan capital, compared, for example, to that of Bologna: "The government has reduced their funds by 5%, to us by 23".
THE METHOD OF DISTRIBUTION OF CUTS
At the center of the dispute is the mechanism provided for by the 2015 Stability law for the distribution of the spending review imposed on the Municipalities and the so-called large area entities, which is worth 900 million for this year (of which 256 to the metropolitan cities, the administrative realities that constitute the supersession of the Provinces, and the rest to the Provinces which remain as such), to which are added another 100 million in the special statute regions.
In essence, the historical cost method is no longer applied but the standard cost method, that is, it calculates how much a service should really cost if everything worked as it should and on that basis the reduction of transfers is made, taking as reference the average expenditure in the three-year period 2010-2012 in each province. The new criterion of standard costs, more virtuous, is still partially applied: 80% still refers to historical costs and only 20% to standard requirements. And yet the mayors are already on the defensive. Everyone agreed on the rules established in the budget law: the problems arose after the calculations established the extent of the cuts to be imposed on individual administrations.
THE NARDELLA-MEROLA HIT AND ANSWER
“I don't criticize the government's policy, but I have placed an issue of sharing the sacrifices in the ANCI – he said Nardella on Radio 24 –. There are technical criteria that establish a series of modalities; I pose the problem that we must all solve together. The most virtuous local authorities are often affected. Let's pose a theme not by making a controversy between mayors and the government, but on how proportional and justifiable cuts can be applied to the various local authorities also on the basis of their abilities ".
Merola however he recalled that “the criteria for distributing the cuts were agreed upon in the State-Regions Conference. Nardella is the coordinator, for the Anci, of the metropolitan cities: we have never seen a coordinator who instead of representing everyone attacks other cities. So either Nardella was wrong or he simply no longer represents me and it is good that he resigns ”.
THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE CUTS
In detail, the cuts planned for Florence they amount to almost 26 million in absolute terms in 2015, which correspond to a reduction of 30,24% on the average of 2010-2012. TO Bologna instead the scissoring is worth just over 5 million (-6,61%). As for the other cities, the absolute primacy of the cuts belongs to Roma (-87 million, or -24,9%), followed by Napoli (-65 million, equal to -16,42%), Torino (-20 million, for a cut of 6,61%) e Milano (-17 million, also in this case a reduction of 6,61%).
