District levy in Vorpommern-Greifswald sinks despite the financial hole!

District levy in Vorpommern-Greifswald sinks despite the financial hole!

Difficult times for the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald: On July 7, 2025, the district council decided to make the supplementary budget, which had to be launched for financial necessity. Expenditures are currently exceeding the income, which is by no means easy for future budget planning. This development led to the fact that the circular levy was reduced from 48.5 to 42 percent, a step that has already been criticized before that it is expected that this reduction will not be withstanding legal reviews, such as NDR reported.

District Administrator Michael Sack (CDU) openly puts the concern for the concerns: For 2025, the district expects a financial hole of around 85 million euros. This gap is directly related to rapid rapid expenses in the youth and social area, while the income remains stable. The financial department Dietger will underlines that the financial difficulties are less based on the income side than rather on the extensive expenses. In order to help the municipalities in this tense situation, an increase in relief by reducing the circular levy from 48.5 is proposed to initially intended 44 percent, which should provide the municipalities a total of 14.4 million euros, so Nordkurier.

legal checks and the lifting estate dilemma

The reduction of the lifting rate to 42 percent, however. Experts doubt that this amount can withstand a legal examination. The district council made the decision taking into account legal framework, but the uncertainty remains in terms of the future of financing. The district council will have to deal with the supplementary budget again in order to cope with the financial bottleneck.

A look at the numbers and the nationwide trend

A closer look at the numbers shows that the situation is not only tense in Western Pomerania. The German Landkreisstag reveals a dark overall picture for the counties in Germany. While a surplus of 593 million euros was achieved in 2022, a deficit of 0.8 billion euros is forecast for 2023. This happens despite an expected increase in revenue of over seven percent. Around 74.5 % of the counties will find it difficult to achieve the budget compensation. This shows that the challenges are complex and overall German.

The investment backlog of around 32.4 billion euros is particularly worrying, which has piled up, especially in the field of schools. And even if the allocations of the federal states are to increase by 7.1 %, the question remains whether this is sufficient to cover the increasing requirements of social benefits and personnel costs. In times when the number of refugees increases rapidly and the social expenditure increases accordingly, the discussion about the distribution of the financial burdens is all the more important.

The coming months will be decisive for the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald whether it will be possible to close the financial hole and at the same time to develop a sustainable strategy to stabilize municipal finances.