District levy in Western Pomerania-Greifswald is falling despite the financial gap!

District levy in Western Pomerania-Greifswald is falling despite the financial gap!

Difficult times for the Vorpommern-Greifswald district: On July 7th, 2025, the district council passed the supplementary budget, which had to be brought into being due to financial necessity. Expenditure currently exceeds income, which is by no means easy for future budget planning. This development led to the district levy being reduced from 48.5 to 42 percent, a move that has previously been criticized as it is expected that this reduction will not withstand legal scrutiny, as NDR reports.

District Administrator Michael Sack (CDU) openly presents the worrying financial situation: For the year 2025, the district expects a financial hole of around 85 million euros. This gap is directly linked to rapidly increasing expenditure in the youth and social sectors, while income remains stable. The head of the finance department, Dietger Wille, emphasizes that the financial difficulties are based less on the income side and more on the rapidly increasing expenses. In order to help the municipalities in this tense situation, an increase in relief is proposed by reducing the district levy from 48.5 to the initially targeted 44 percent, which should provide the municipalities with a total of 14.4 million euros in relief Nordkurier.

Legal reviews and the tax dilemma

However, reducing the assessment rate to 42 percent raises concerns. Experts doubt that this level can withstand legal scrutiny. The district council made the decision taking into account the legal framework, but uncertainty remains regarding the future of financing. The district council will have to deal again with the supplementary budget in order to sustainably manage 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-Greifswald. The German District Association reveals a bleak overall picture for the districts 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 is despite an expected increase in revenue of over seven percent. Around 74.5% of the districts will have a difficult time balancing their budgets. This shows that the challenges are complex and German-wide.

What is particularly worrying is the investment backlog of around 32.4 billion euros, which has piled up especially in the schools sector. And even if the federal states' allocations are expected to increase by 7.1%, the question remains whether this will be enough to cover the increasing demands for social services and personnel costs. In times when the number of refugees is increasing rapidly and social spending is increasing accordingly, the discussion about the distribution of the financial burden becomes even more important.

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