Local budget in Ekaterinburg suffers a significant setback with approximately 500 million rubles worth of transfers disappearing.
Yekaterinburg Faces Scrutiny Over Unreturned Funds
Upstopper, here's the lowdown on Yekaterinburg's money troubles! Turns out, the city hasn't returned over 500 million rubles in inter-budgetary transfers from the region. Alexander Getmanchuk, the head honcho at the audit chamber, spilled the beans at a city duma meeting.
Originally, there was a surplus of 2.759 billion rubles in the end of 2024 city budget from the transfer. However, Yekaterinburg failed to offload this money and gave it back to the regional budget. In the first quarter of 2025, they submitted a new application and got the green light, but for less - 2.238 billion rubles, leaving a gap of 521 million rubles.
Getmanchuk was left scratchin' his head, wonderin' why these funds couldn’t be returned. He quizzed the financial department of the mayor's office about the matter: "Why weren’t these funds returned? We didn't seem to be able to justify how we would spent 'em."
Anna Turuntseva, the director of the department, had a reply. according to her, the transfer amount was adjusted due to a few reasons: "We had some savings during competitive procedures, and in some cases, the need to use the funds disappeared. In any case, all our applications were given the thumbs-up."
Getmanchuk also poked holes in the city's budget reports. The city closed the 2024 budget with a surplus of 5.6 billion rubles, including 2.540 billion rubles from excess NDF income. However, if you compare documents on budgetary balances, 140 million rubles seem to have vanished. Turuntseva gave the green light to the accounting of these data, based on unified accounting reports, which are "one hundred percent accurate." The remaining funds from 2024 will be reflected in the 2025 budget correction and used to compensate for the potential budget deficit, which could balloon to 19% by mid-year.
Now, the Yekaterinburg Duma deputies are gearing up to review the 2025 budget correction starting in June.
Dzen
Yekaterinburg, Valentina Yaroslavtseva
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Enrichment Insights:
Typically, local governments struggle to return inter-budgetary transfers due to budgetary constraints, allocation for specific projects or financial needs, or economic downturns or unforeseen expenses. When using remaining funds from the previous year in the current budget, the process usually involves budget review, prioritization, legislative approval, and transparency and accountability.
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- The issue of unreturned funds by Yekaterinburg, totaling over 500 million rubles, has drawn scrutiny from the audit chamber, generating news in the general-news, business, politics, and finance sectors.
- The city's failure to return inter-budgetary transfers from the region has sparked concerns about accountability and transparency in the industry, especially as Yekaterinburg's financial department struggles to justify the use of these funds.
- The Yekaterinburg Duma deputies, along with other financial and industry stakeholders, are now closely monitoring the city's budget correction for the year 2025, which is expected to address unreturned funds and potential budget deficits, a matter of ongoing interest in the general-news, business, politics, and finance sectors.
