Dresden’s mayor Dirk Hilbert (FDP) has sounded the alarm about the expenses in his city. The exploding additional costs for taking in asylum seekers are causing a gigantic hole in the current budget, he complained, according to the newspaper ‘Bild’.
This item is causing the biggest rise in the costs, he said. There was already a shortfall of 200 million euros. Actually, 30 million euros had been budgeted for 2023 and 2024 together. But that is nothing but enough! Another 38 million euros are needed.
The six housing containers alone, as well as the hotel rentals to accommodate the migrants, cost almost 50 million euros. By the end of next year, another 17.3 million euros would have to be invested in renting the city hostel.
Saxony is simply abandoned by the federal government to deal with these high expenditures. “You have also heard the massive outcry of the district councils. Of the one billion euros that the federal government has announced to relieve the states, about 47 million euros remain for Saxony. In Dresden, 6.5 million euros could be received in the best case scenario – that’s not even a drop in the ocean,” Hilbert clarified.
He was also concerned about the rising operating costs in schools and day-care centres or investments in new buildings or the purchase of social housing. Dresden has to dig deep into its pockets for this, which is slowly becoming almost unmanageable.
https://jungefreiheit.de/politik/deutschland/2023/kein-geld-in-dresden/