Speech OB 10.10.2012

It is our most important joint task as a city council: to intensively discuss and decide on the budget and medium-term financial planning. This task never becomes a casual routine. Because the income and expenditure in the budget reflect the current social circumstances, crises, opportunities, projects and, above all, our organisational goals for Chemnitz.

I urge you to stick to the goal we have been pursuing together for years: To further develop Chemnitz as a modern, attractive industrial city.

And this still includes

To put it mildly, the framework conditions for drawing up municipal budgets have not become any easier in recent years.

Mr Brehm will go into this in more detail in his speech.

To summarise, it can be said that our tax revenues are stable or rising slightly.

We have an increase in tax revenue, which has risen by € 13 million to € 202.6 million. For the first time, we have budgeted for trade tax income to exceed €100 million.

Key allocations from the state are also rising again.

However, this will be offset by additional expenditure, e.g. in the areas of youth welfare and personnel.

Theresolutions of the Ekko development and consolidation concept demand a lot from us in terms of implementation. This will enable us to achieve a balanced budget again in 2016.

In order to be able to maintain this Chemnitz budget in the coming years not as an austerity budget, but as a creative budget, we have reduced debt. We want to continue along this path and will inform you in more detail in the coming weeks.

We are undertaking this endeavour in order to further develop Chemnitz as a modern, attractive industrial city.

We have achieved a great deal - but much remains to be done. I would like to pick out a few focal points:

Goal: Investment in schools and daycare centres

Address,

Our university is a nationally significant and excellent educational and research institution.

It is not only our university that has made a name for itself in recent years.

We have also raised the profile of our urban development with the university.

And our profile is:

Of the more than 2,300 new students enrolled on Monday, over 10 per cent come from abroad. Many come from other federal states. A gain for our city. A gain for Saxony.

Student life has already moved into the Rawema building: 200 trainee teachers have their teacher training centre there. The teacher training programme, which has returned to Chemnitz, is also being developed and established in the Rawema House.

Students in the city centre: that's good for Chemnitz!

And that brings me right to the heart of the goal: strengthening the city centre

Address,

Education and urban development are sustainable indirect economic development.

We are benefiting directly from a strong, robust industry: manufacturers of metal products have an increase in turnover of 16.5 per cent, although the order volume in many sectors has fallen by several per cent compared to the strong year 2011. A forecast for 2013 cannot be made with absolute certainty. Our companies are also exposed to uncertainties. Economic cycles are becoming shorter.

Nevertheless, many companies are investing in their workforces and providing strong training.

We are continuing to invest in our urban infrastructure:
Around 10 million euros have been budgeted for the Dresdner Platz bridge next year. 5.9 million have been budgeted for the expansion of the B174 motorway.

Address,

To ensure that Chemnitz remains a social city with a high quality of life, our budget plan includes many resources for this purpose:

Many people choose Chemnitz as a place to live because of the good jobs. Proof of this is not least the positive immigration balance over the past few years.

However, for the city to be a place to live - in the best sense - it needs more, it needs quality of life.

This is where cuts hurt the most, but it is also where reality and perception often diverge the most.

Here we sometimes lack the self-confidence to say what we have preserved, built and developed. Guests and people from Neuchemnitz are often surprised at how much there is to discover in Chemnitz.

Even under difficult conditions, we continue to invest in culture and sport:

We have budgeted almost 50 million euros for culture in the draft budget, of which more than 25 million euros will go to the theatre.

In addition to high culture, basic culture, such as broad musical education, is important to us: We are investing 500,000 euros in the music school next year.

Admission to many museums is free for children.

This commitment is fitting: Chemnitz is the venue for the 2013 German Music Festival under the patronage of the Federal President.

15,000 musicians and 150,000 guests are expected in our city - Chemnitz as a stage for young musicians from all over Germany.

On the subject of sport: we are building a football stadium that will strengthen sport and the economy in the entire region in the long term.

With the proposal of the State Directorate for the approval of the stadium project with the city as the developer and subject to your decision on the corresponding supplementary budget on 14 November 2012, we will include interest and repayment for the necessary loan in the financial plan. Around 833,000 euros are planned for next year and around two million in 2014. The goal of further reducing our city's debt in the medium term remains unchanged. The treasurer will also address this.

We are also investing 1.3 million euros in sport in 2013, including, for example, 500,000 euros in the renovation of the Sachsenhalle and 300,000 euros in the multi-purpose athletics hall.

Quality of life is also always dependent on everyone feeling that they are in good hands and that the social fabric of a city is intact. At 90 million euros, the social budget is the largest in next year's budget.

Address,

Our budgetary policy must be geared towards the future. We want to strike the difficult balance between investment, stability and consolidation.

This budget is not routine for you as councillors and for us. I know that you will be dealing with it intensively over the next few weeks. I would like to invite you to a debate that will result in an agreed budget as soon as possible - because this is and will remain the prerequisite for us to be able to tackle the planned investments as quickly as possible.