The most important item on the agenda of the December session of the Bolesławiec County Council was the vote on the draft resolution on the Bolesławiec County budget for 2016, together with a self-amendment. Józef Król from the Forum caucus (the opposition in the County Council) said: “I do not know whether this amendment has been authorized by legally empowered persons. Since when have the county head and deputy county head not been participating in ongoing work? Which elements of the draft budget were prepared and will be submitted without their formal approval? We have a number of questions and doubts. And we would like to ask them, if not of the county head, then of the deputy county head.”
Stanisław Chwojnicki, a full-time member of the Bolesławiec County Board, assured everyone that the draft budget had been adopted by the Board in its full composition.
After this explanation, Józef Król spoke again: “I propose looking at the budget as the implementation of objectives. I would like to address three areas: public education, health care and public roads. The draft budget contains not a single zloty for achieving what we believe is the most important objective—building an operating wing at our hospital. Next year, regulations may come into force that could make it impossible to perform operations. This problem cannot simply be ignored.”
The councillor also addressed the reorganization of county education (we have written about it in our pages many times). He mentioned the meeting held at the beginning of December. At that time, the county head spoke about a concept of distributing one of the schools among other schools. “How should this be understood? It is simply the closure of the institution,” said J. Król.
He added: “I congratulate the young people from Zespół Szkół Budowlanych on their calm yet substantive approach to defending their school.”
The councillor also submitted a formal motion to remove from the budget resolution the provision concerning the relocation of the County Complex of Special Schools and Institutions to new premises, leaving only the words: “adaptation of the existing facility.”
Another reason, councillor Król continued, why the Forum caucus would not vote for the budget was that the resolution contained not a single zloty for county roads within the city. “I know that there is a chance of obtaining PLN 11 million for an investment in Osiecznica, but county roads in an area inhabited by nearly half of the county’s residents cannot be left like this,” he added.
Stanisław Chwojnicki stressed that the Board would not change its position, that the self-amendment was beneficial and that it was the “result of talks with the public.” He also noted that no decision had yet been made about where the special school would be located.
Józef Król said: “I can modify the motion. I propose leaving the provision on relocation to another facility, but adding ‘not a school facility.’ I think we should all want to calm the situation in education.”
The Board nevertheless upheld its position, and J. Król’s proposal was rejected.
The discussion was joined by Maciej Małkowski of the opposition Ziemia Bolesławiecka: “I ask whether considering this self-amendment is legal. It resulted from a resolution adopted by the Board, while the last page bears today’s date [17 December—editor’s note]. At whose request was the Board convened today?”
County Secretary Radosław Palczewski explained that the date on the self-amendment was merely the date on which it was drafted, not the date of the Board meeting. He added that the county authorities had been prepared for the possibility that the county head might not attend the budget session.
The self-amendment, without the changes proposed by J. Król, was adopted with 10 votes in favor.
Ewa Sondaj of the coalition PSL said: “At first, the amendment proposed by Mr. Król seemed quite sensible to us. But the provision that we cannot move the school to another educational building closes off one possible option. The mayor is present at the session. Perhaps he would be willing to provide us with a building belonging to a city school?”[mowa o Piotrze Romanie – przyp. „ii”]
The head of the Council, Karol Stasik, cut the issue short, stressing that the mayor had already expressed his position on the matter.
Maciej Małkowski appeared at the podium again and presented the position of Ziemia Bolesławiecka councillors on the budget. The councillor recalled that in one of last year’s interviews, county head Dariusz Kwaśniewski had announced the introduction of a so-called civic budget in 2016, whereas the resolution did not contain a single word about it.
M. Małkowski also mentioned the lack of road investments in the city of Bolesławiec. “It seems that some minor investment in Bolesławiec could be included in each successive budget,” he noted. “The same applies to Nowogrodziec. I see no investments on county roads in that municipality.”
He added that Ziemia would vote against the budget.
Ewa Potyszka of the coalition Platforma Samorządowa Powiatu Bolesławieckiego said: “I am a little saddened, because I have always been proud of my opposition colleagues who are councillors. We all know what happened with the special school. We had ambitious plans for this school to be established; there was already a project, everything was in place. But external factors intervened, and we did not receive the money.”
Jan Russ of the opposition PiS stated that the amendment without the changes proposed by the Forum caucus would not calm the situation, and that leaving the provision in place would “give rise to speculation about which school it would ultimately affect.”
Karol Stasik joined the discussion, explaining that the lack of investment in the city resulted from the County having a chance to obtain PLN 16 million for investments in other municipalities. He added that if the local government did not carry out the investment in Osiecznica, it would have to build bridges there for PLN 12 million from its own funds. He also said that the coalition would vote for the budget.
Kazimierz Gawron, a member of the County Board and former long-serving head of Gmina Bolesławiec, said: “The County is not the only one facing difficulties. The state is transferring more and more tasks to local governments without securing funds for them. Do the councillors believe that the Board cannot do the math?”
“Sometimes it is necessary to state this brutal truth publicly,” continued K. Gawron. “There is no money for schools because the European Union believes that, given the demographic situation in our country, it makes no sense to subsidize investments such as building or expanding schools. The Board faced a dilemma: what should it do about this situation?”
He stressed: “We must solve this problem together. We do not want anyone to gain political capital from the special school, because that would be immoral.”
Kazimierz Gawron explained that various concepts were being considered regarding the special school, and that the Board would present them to all Council committees so that the councillors could jointly choose the wisest option. “Everyone can easily make easy decisions. We will not abandon the reform of secondary schools; demographics have taken their toll. Next year we will begin adding around a million zlotys to education. If we do not take action to restructure the education network, it will turn out that either we will have to add to education spending—though it is not clear from where—or reduce the number of road investments. I have been preparing budgets for 40 years. It is difficult to do anything much wiser here,” he added.
The councillors adopted the budget resolution with 11 votes in favor. Six councillors voted against it. One person abstained.
We will certainly return to this topic.