Incheon City Raises Autonomous District Adjustment Grants to 22.3%... Reflecting Next Year's Administrative System Reorganization

Incheon City has decided to increase the adjustment grants for autonomous districts, which will increase from 8 to 9 in line with the administrative system reorganization scheduled for July next year.

On the 20th, the city announced that it will raise the grant rate for autonomous district adjustment grants, which has been maintained for over 10 years since 2013, from the current 20% to 22.3%. This rate is higher than the metropolitan city average grant rate of 22.03%, and the adjustment grants provided to autonomous districts will be additionally supported by the city with more than 92 billion KRW annually compared to before the administrative system reorganization.

The adjustment grants are funds that the city allocates to autonomous districts based on a fixed grant rate from seven types of ordinary taxes among city taxes (acquisition tax, leisure tax, tobacco consumption tax, resident tax, local income tax, automobile tax, local consumption tax), considering the difficult financial situation of the autonomous districts.

Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok is holding a press briefing on the 18th at the city hall briefing room regarding the preparation status for the launch of autonomous districts following the reorganization of the Incheon-type administrative system. 2025.2.18 Photo by Incheon City

To proactively respond to the Incheon-type administrative system reorganization in July next year and to reflect the financial conditions due to social changes, the city prepared a proposal to improve the autonomous district adjustment grant system through a research project. The "Act on the Establishment of Jemulpo-gu, Yeongjong-gu, and Geomdan-gu in Incheon," which was passed by the National Assembly and promulgated in January last year, will take effect from July 1 next year, when the 9th popularly elected mayoral term begins. The administrative system of Incheon City will expand from the 2 counties and 8 districts maintained since 1995 to 2 counties and 9 districts with one additional autonomous district.

The improvement plan includes raising the adjustment grant rate and additionally providing special adjustment grants within the range of 10 billion KRW annually for three years to the reorganized autonomous district, where financial demand is expected to surge.

Along with this, the city plans to actively request government-level support for the successful launch of the reorganized autonomous district. On the 13th, the city met with the Acting Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to propose support for special grants and system improvement measures, and will continuously request amendments to related laws to ensure government financial support such as national funds and special grants.

Incheon Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok stated, "In a situation where local governments face a heavy financial burden due to the real estate market downturn, raising the adjustment grant rate will help establish the autonomous districts' self-reliance foundation and reduce financial disparities between regions." He added, "In particular, we will actively support the stable settlement of the reorganized autonomous district by compensating for the rapidly increasing financial demand due to the administrative system reorganization."

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