Commentary on the forchheim budget: a powerless budget success
Almost exactly one year after taking office, uwe kirschstein gave his first budget speech. As is customary on such occasions, he also used them to take stock of the situation. Investing three-quarters of the city budget in education, infrastructure and building policy – kirschstein celebrates this as a success. In view of the investment backlog (for which kirschsein is not responsible), a rather lackluster success. A "powerful design, as the mayor emphasized, this budget is not.
Kirschstein's real achievement is that he managed to get a clear majority behind this record debt budget, despite the communication failures in the city council (for which he is partly responsible). For he had not been allowed to complain when not only the greens and the REP had rejected this budget. This rejection has nothing to do with fundamental opposition, as the greens are sometimes accused of being.
It is an expression of a concern and a warning that other factions have also voiced – and that OB kirschstein cannot take seriously enough: without a radical debt reduction, without real austerity measures and without the realization of groundbreaking projects (such as the kolpinghaus), kirschstein will definitely not get a majority for his budget next year.
