Daejeon City to 'Cut' Next Year's Resident Participation Budget... Civic Groups Urge Plan Withdrawal

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Daejeon City will reduce the resident participation budget next year to half of this year's amount.

On the 22nd, according to Daejeon City, the city recently sent official letters to the five autonomous districts to reduce the resident participation budget from 20 billion won this year to 10 billion won next year.

With the city's reduction of the resident participation budget, the budget support to the autonomous districts will also decrease. Based on this year, the city allocated a total resident participation budget of 20 billion won and supported the autonomous districts with 8.2 billion won, but next year, 4.5 billion won out of the 10 billion won will be allocated to the autonomous districts.

The reduction of the resident participation budget appears to have been decided reflecting the city's deteriorating financial conditions. Earlier, the city forecasted that the scale of local bonds would exceed 1 trillion won by the end of this year and announced that it would tighten budget management including local bonds.

As of the end of last year, the city's local bond scale was 847.6 billion won, and reflecting this year's increase (planned amount) of 214.5 billion won, the city judged that local bonds are likely to exceed 1 trillion won by the end of the year.

This is an increase of 466 billion won compared to 596.1 billion won in 2018, and the rapid increase in local bonds is analyzed to have been largely influenced by land compensation for long-term unexecuted urban parks and expanded fiscal expenditures to respond to COVID-19.

A city official said, "The reduction of the resident participation budget is an unavoidable decision made to repay local bonds early, considering that the city's debt will exceed 1 trillion won by the end of this year," adding, "This year, the budget will be executed normally, and next year, we will strive to carry out projects solidly at about half the level."

If the city actually reduces the resident participation budget, it is expected that a considerable number of resident autonomy projects promoted by the autonomous districts will inevitably be consolidated or abolished. Because of this, some autonomous districts reportedly held emergency countermeasure meetings to discuss changes to next year's project plans.

In this regard, local civic groups have called for the withdrawal of the city's plan to reduce the resident participation budget. On the previous day (21st), the Daejeon Civic Society Solidarity Meeting stated, "Reducing the budget without discussing it with residents is an undesirable decision," and urged, "The city should withdraw the policy to reduce the resident participation budget."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.