As reported by UMWD:
The Regional Chamber of Audit declared invalid the resolution of the Lower Silesian Regional Assembly denying a vote of approval to the Lower Silesian Regional Executive Board. The resolution was adopted by opposition councillors during the assembly’s vote-of-approval session in May this year.
– The decision of the Regional Chamber of Audit leaves no doubt that Lower Silesia’s 2022 budget was properly executed. As the regional executive board, we are focusing on implementing investments and social initiatives for the benefit of Lower Silesia’s residents. This is a budget that supports the sustainable development of the entire region and enables us, as the regional government, to cooperate with local governments throughout the region – comments Cezary Przybylski, Marshal of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship.
The regional authorities add:
In the opinion of the Regional Chamber of Audit, the assembly’s resolution denying the regional executive board a vote of approval for executing the 2022 budget had no substantive justification. The RIO justification concerning this year’s resolution of the Lower Silesian Regional Assembly states, among other things, that the granting or denial of a vote of approval should be determined solely by the question of whether the voivodeship’s budget was properly executed, and that denial of a vote of approval should be preceded by an unequivocally negative assessment of its execution. In the RIO’s opinion, The assessment made during the vote-of-approval session—a negative assessment—did not result from a comprehensive analysis of budget execution. No arguments concerning the execution of the budget as a whole were presented during the session.
They further explain:
It should be emphasized that the Lower Silesian Voivodeship’s 2022 budget closed with a high budget surplus of nearly PLN 180 million. In 2022, the regional government did not take out any loans, while capital expenditure reached a record level over the past five years, amounting to PLN 491 million.
A vote of approval is a summary of budget execution. It is the closing element of the financial management of a local government unit, for the proper conduct of which the executive body is responsible. At the same time, if the Regional Assembly, whose powers include granting or denying a vote of approval, does not demonstrate and substantiate that the failure to carry out important tasks for the community set out in the budget resolution resulted in a quantified breach of expenditure limits caused by the executive body, it may not take action resulting in the denial of a vote of approval.