Taking advantage of the “dynamism of its tax bases” to generate “considerable revenue” is not “good management practice”, reminded the Hauts-de-Seine department of the regional chamber of accounts, in a report published on Wednesday, covering the last seven years.
The accumulation of public revenue, of essentially tax origin, is not a good management practice, she decided at the address of the rich department in the inner Parisian crown, which posted in 2021 a cash position of more than 700 million euros.
The property tax, the contribution on the added value of companies (CVAE) and transfer duties have generated revenue of a considerable magnitude, the court wondered. Tax revenue increased by 5.6% per year from 2014 to 2019, generating an increase in annual revenue of 422 million euros.
The Ile-de-France financial authority also notes that the Hauts-de-Seine department has used its financial wealth to opt for unnecessarily expensive financing methods or intervene in areas where it is no longer competent (. ..) since 2015, such as economic development and business real estate.
To rebalance the balance, the regional chamber recommends in particular to revise the rate of transfer duties, taxes collected during real estate sales. It also encourages the voluntary donation process initiated with the other Ile-de-France departments, consisting of levying the most dynamic communities to donate to the less privileged.
Finally, it recommends a further adjustment of state grants.
In his response appended to the report, the president of the department Georges Siffredi defended his budgetary policy by recalling the freezing, the reduction, then again the freezing of the overall operating grant granted to the communities at the beginning of the 2010s. In 2015 , figure read, this drop caused the Hauts-de-Seine to lose 48 million euros.
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In its report, the Chamber also praised the process of modernization, regularization and improvement of efficiency begun in 2015, which has enabled a budgetary gain of 50 million euros.
The Department has reduced its operating costs by cutting overhead costs and reducing staff, she notes. It has grouped its services together in less energy-intensive premises, simplified the organization chart, improved the performance of certain failing systems such as the accounting function.
The institution also appreciated the regularization of several irregular practices in terms of personnel management and overtime and the desire to increase financial transparency.
Finally, the chamber found that the department had raised the average salary of its officers and improved their benefits.