Financial situation of local authorities: stop the caricatures!

The association points out that, unlike the State, local authority budgets must be voted on each year to balance. The association's elected representatives hope that the Government will stop diverting attention from the State's financial situation, even though local authority accounts are mostly well managed.

Local elected officials cannot be satisfied with this way of doing things. In addition to communication operations and the opacity of the method, they would prefer to finally have an interlocutor at the national level to establish a framework for calm dialogue, in confidence, on the basis of a shared diagnosis. The association questions the legitimacy of a Government that has resigned for two months, which in addition to publicly calling into question the communities, announces significant reductions in the green fund, essential for leading the ecological transition in the territories.

Intercommunalités de France finds it hard not to see the Government's desire to divert attention from the State's budgetary slippages, for which local authorities cannot be held responsible. Elimination of local taxes that deprive our finances of significant revenue, budget established on the basis of erroneous growth forecasts, costly administrative duplications highlighted by the Ravignon report, etc., there are many avenues for improving public accounts that could be discussed between the State and local authority associations.

Intercommunalités de France hopes that a new Government will be appointed quickly in order to meet the expectations of the French people and the challenges facing our country. It will have to thoroughly review the method that has until now governed the dialogue between the State and local authorities on financial issues, and involve all associations of elected officials in discussions based on mutual trust.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.