'Goyang City Council Cuts Livelihood Budget and Increases Overseas Training Expenses'

Democratic Party Significantly Increases Chairperson's Office Expenses and Overseas Training Costs
Mayor Lee Dong-hwan Calls It a "Hypocritical Attitude Using All Kinds of Tricks and Deceptions"

[Asia Economy Reporter Ra Young-cheol] The Goyang City Council, which had pushed the 2023 Goyang City budget into a provisional budget system, held a belated extraordinary session to finalize the budget, cutting numerous livelihood-related budgets while significantly increasing expenses such as overseas training and business trip costs for the city council, sparking public outrage.

The Goyang City Council initially cut the chairman's office operation expenses from about 17 million KRW to 170 million KRW, and increased the overseas training and business trip expenses, which had been fully cut, to about 320 million KRW, passing the budget accordingly.

The 270th Goyang City Council Extraordinary Session held on the 20th
[Image source=Goyang City Council]

According to Goyang City on the 21st, among the delayed main budget proposals due to disagreements between the People Power Party and the Democratic Party in the city council, the Democratic Party led the restoration of the chairman's office operation expenses and overseas training and business trip expenses through the Budget and Accounts Committee.

The city council failed to approve the 2023 budget by the legal deadline at the end of last year and held an extraordinary session on the 6th to conduct a belated budget review. However, the budget initially requested by the city was drastically cut during the standing committee and Budget and Accounts Committee review process.

In response, the city attempted to negotiate with the city council to reflect some projects directly related to pledge fulfillment and livelihood among the cut budgets, while accepting some of the 18 items including resident autonomy committee operation support expenses that the Democratic Party requested to increase.

However, the Democratic Party completely rejected this and, leveraging their numerical superiority, cut most of the key projects and operation expenses.

The Budget and Accounts Committee chairman stated, "I cannot participate in reckless budget cuts made without any principled standards," and after blaming the Democratic Party's violent behavior for the situation, resigned from the chairman position on the 20th.

Subsequently, under the leadership of the Democratic Party, a new Budget and Accounts Committee chairman was appointed, and the 2023 budget was approved.

The city pointed out, "They consistently maintained a unilateral attitude without clear explanations or justifications for the budget cuts," and criticized, "The council is using its deliberation and resolution authority merely as a tool to control the executive branch."

It added, "It appears that the city council is breaking the executive branch's will to carry out projects and stubbornly insisting on their demands," and "We suspect that the budget review is being used not to enhance public welfare but solely as a means to control the executive branch."

According to the Budget and Accounts Committee's adjustment plan, about 11 billion KRW was cut compared to the original budget proposal. In particular, one of Mayor Lee Dong-hwan's pledges, the 'Installation of fine dust prevention windows for vulnerable health groups (900 million KRW),' a project planned to be carried out sequentially over three years at 1,073 locations including daycare centers and senior citizen centers, has become uncertain due to the budget cuts.

Additionally, many core projects of the 8th local government administration were included, such as ▲Operation of technical education for young slow learners ▲Establishment of Goyang Citizen Welfare Foundation and preparation of preliminary consultation plans with Gyeonggi Province ▲Support for disaster victims and underprivileged marginalized groups ▲Encouragement of contributors to cultural, artistic, and sports activities.

Mayor Lee Dong-hwan strongly opposed, saying, "The city council's budget review is nothing but a 'messy' process using all sorts of unreasonable tactics and tricks," and "The city council, which has shown a hypocritical attitude pretending to serve the citizens, has revealed its shameless true colors with this double-faced behavior."

The city requested the budget in compliance with the purpose and composition limits set by the Regulations on the Use of Business Expenses for Local Governments (Ministry of the Interior and Safety Ordinance), but the city council cut more than 90% of the budget for each project.

As the cut budget passed the plenary session, the city is considering exercising its 'right to request reconsideration' out of concern that the damage will be borne by the citizens.

If the city executive requests reconsideration, the city council must confirm the same resolution with a majority of the total members present and at least two-thirds of the members present voting in favor.

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