The draft budget for 2023 presented Monday by the government is “globally calamitous” for local authorities, criticized Monday the president of the Local Finance Committee (CFL), André Laignel.
The finance bill (PLF) “amplifies the decline in fiscal and financial autonomy” of local executives, attacked the socialist mayor of Issoudun (Indre) during a press conference in Paris.
“This PLF is one of the most problematic in recent years and is globally calamitous: for the capacity for action of all local authorities, for the modernization capacity of our country, and of course for the quality of services given back to our fellow citizens”, enumerated André Laignel.
The local elected official particularly regrets the absence of indexation to inflation of the global operating grant (DGF), the abolition of the CVAE – a production tax collected by the municipalities and departments – and the contribution of the communities to the recovery of public finances.
“Stabilizing the DGF, in reality, is to puncture it by at least 7%”, protested André Laignel, while the inflation rate has been around 6% over one year for several months.
In an interview with the newspaper Le Figaro, the Minister in charge of Territorial Communities, Caroline Cayeux, nevertheless assured Monday that the DGF would “increase in 2023 by 210 million euros”.
“70% of the municipalities will see their allocation maintained or increased,” added the member of the executive.
Not enough to appease André Laignel, who deplores the abolition by 2024 of the CVAE, a “gift made to the Medef” which is “unreasonable” and would harm the economic “development” of the territories.
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Finally, the curb imposed by the State on the operating expenses of local authorities (which must not increase faster than a figure 0.5 point lower than inflation) enrages the CFL, an association which defends the interests funds from local communities.
“Once again, the State considers the budget of local authorities as an annex budget to that of the State”, denounced André Laignel.
According to his calculation, local executives will see their operating expenses cut by 9 billion euros (ie 0.5% of the 180 billion annual operating expenses of local authorities).
In the morning, the government had for its part indicated that financial assistance to communities would increase by 1.1 billion euros in 2023 compared to the first finance law for 2022, accompanied by numerous additional expenses in the summer.