Seoul City's 57 Trillion Won Budget Confirmed for 2024

Seoul Metropolitan Council Approves Revised Budget of 45.7405 Trillion KRW for Seoul City and 11.1605 Trillion KRW for Education Office in Plenary Session on 15th
Seoul City TBS Contribution Set to '0 KRW'... Increased Safety Budget for Drugs, Original Plans Passed for Livelihood and Future Including Climate Companion Card
Education Office Cuts 156.1 Billion KRW for Digital Environment Creation Including Divet, Increases 99.4 Billion KRW for School Facility Improvement
Chairman Kim Hyun-gi: "Strict Application of Three No's Principle. Protecting Livelihood, Safety, Education, Future, and Seoul's Fiscal Foundation"

The Seoul Metropolitan Government's budget for next year has been finalized at 45.7405 trillion won, a decrease of 1.4 trillion won compared to this year.

The Seoul Metropolitan Council has confirmed the scale of Seoul's budget for next year. The Seoul city budget was finally decided at 45.7405 trillion won, about 1.4 trillion won less than this year's budget.

This amount is 17.48 billion won more than the budget initially submitted by the city. The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education was also finalized at 11.1605 trillion won, reduced by 1 trillion won compared to the 2023 main budget. The total amount remained unchanged, with adjustments made through increases and decreases among internal projects.

The Seoul Metropolitan Council (Chairman Kim Hyun-gi) announced on the 15th that it held the 5th plenary session of the 321st regular meeting and passed amendments to the 2024 Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education Special Account budget proposals.

The council applied the so-called ‘3 No (不) Principles’?eliminating ▲unnecessary and non-essential expenditures ▲unclear execution purposes ▲uncertain project effects?fully, preserving the budget foundation of Seoul’s ‘fiscal soundness’ and the 2024 policy priorities of ‘livelihood-safety-education-future.’

Seoul City: TBS ‘0 won’. Safety budget for drugs increased. Livelihood budget such as Climate Companion Card and future budget such as Riverbus passed as originally proposed.

First, the ‘Media Foundation TBS contribution’ was not included in the 2024 Seoul city budget. As the ‘Ordinance on the Establishment and Operation of Media Foundation TBS’ will be abolished as of January 1 next year, the city submitted the next year’s budget without allocating contributions to support TBS, and the council passed the original proposal after review by the standing committee and the budget and accounts special committee at the plenary session.

However, the budget for citizen safety and crime prevention was increased. The budget for the ‘Seoul Drug Prevention Management Center,’ responsible for treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts, was increased by 830 million won to secure 3.5 billion won. The ‘Smart Seoul CCTV Safety Center Operation’ budget was increased by 500 million won, and the ‘Intelligent CCTV Advancement’ project budget was increased by 4.4 billion won, both passing as amended.

Most of Seoul’s livelihood and future investment budgets were approved as originally proposed. Notably, the pilot operation budget for the ‘Climate Companion Card,’ which allows unlimited use of public transportation (subway, bus) and Ddareungi (public bike) within the Seoul area for one month, passed unchanged at 40.1 billion won as proposed by the city.

The budget of 20.8 billion won for ‘Riverbus and other water transportation pier construction,’ which develops water transportation infrastructure on the Han River, was also approved as originally proposed.

Additionally, the budget of 960 million won for the ‘Green Ecology Urban Re-creation Leading Industry’ to establish the redevelopment plan for the Sewoon District, a catalyst for urban regeneration, and 330 million won for the ‘Seoul Station Area Master Plan Establishment’ to create a symbolic gateway space representing Seoul, as well as 290 million won for the ‘Seoul Station Area Master Plan Establishment Competition Management Service,’ were all allocated respectively.

Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education: Digital environment budget cut by 156.1 billion won. Budget for improving outdated school facilities increased by 99.8 billion won.

The digital environment budget of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, including the Debut program, which has raised concerns about students’ overdependence on smart devices, was cut from the initial 373.6 billion won to 217.5 billion won, a reduction of 156.1 billion won. This was due to cuts in the budgets for ‘smart device quality improvement’ and ‘smart device distribution and charging box provision’ for 3rd and 4th-grade elementary students.

The 11.2 billion won budget for ‘smart device quality improvement,’ which involves returning smart devices distributed in 2022 for reset and redistributing them in 2025, was classified as unnecessary and fully cut considering the tight fiscal conditions.

Due to concerns about the severity of smart device overdependence among younger students and difficulties in controlling device use, the budgets for smart devices for 3rd and 4th graders (119.3 billion won) and for student smart device charging boxes (8.6 billion won) were reduced.

On the other hand, the budget for school facility environment improvement projects was increased from the initial 589.9 billion won by 99.4 billion won to a final 689.4 billion won. This increase was made based on the judgment that urgent improvement of aging school facilities is necessary to ensure children’s safety.

Chairman Kim Hyun-gi said, “Despite difficult fiscal conditions, we strictly applied the 3 No Principles to ensure unwavering investment in the values of livelihood, safety, education, and future,” adding, “The Seoul Metropolitan Council will continue to monitor and check the city and the education office to ensure that not a single won of the citizens’ hard-earned taxes is wasted.”

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