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A few weeks ago, the Aesch municipal council praised the cathedral in the southwest of the municipality. Marianne Hollinger (FDP), in particular, campaigned for the ballroom, who was the mayor’s president until the end of June. Successor Eveline Sprecher (SP) also said in mid-August that the project was being carried out despite Corona. At the opening of an exhibition on this 19 million project, she said: “We are clearly feeling the crisis in the community budget. But we have been able to accumulate reserves in recent years. “
But now the same city council has put a brake on the project. It has been decided not to present the cathedral project loan to the September 23 town meeting, he writes. The reason is “the current uncertainties regarding the cantonal financial equalization, which were recently communicated to the canton together with the budget instructions.” At the request, the mayor’s spokesman speaks of a “modified calculation tool” that the canton has made available to the communes.
In the past, Aesch has gone from being a community of donors to a community of recipients and has returned several times. In 2019, the community received CHF 0.5 million, this year CHF 0.7 million. But now, says the spokesman, there is talk of about a million francs less than expected. Before launching the project loan, the city council wants to examine what effects the change in financial matching could have. “We want to be transparent and make clear statements before launching the Dom project,” says Sprecher.
Michael Bertschi, who is responsible for the municipal finances of the canton, estimates the reduction of the financial equalization for the beneficiary municipalities to just under 200 francs per inhabitant in 2021. In Aesch, with about 10,000 inhabitants, this would be around 2 million francs. The background is the crown crisis, so the expected tax revenue in 2020, which is the basis for calculating the financial equalization in 2021, will decrease significantly. Therefore, the canton assumes that donor communities will pay less to the compensation group. Although more can be withdrawn from the equalization pool in a single year than paid, the net withdrawal is limited. Therefore, the compensation level of CHF 2,650 per capita set by the governing council in 2019 for the period 2019-21 will probably not be reached in 2021.
Municipalities were informed at the end of June
This compensation fund is already showing a loss of 0.5 million francs. To prevent under-financing from sinking into the abyss, the withdrawal limitation is stipulated by law. Based on the projected tax revenue in 2020, the canton estimates the reduction for host communities at just under CHF 200 per capita. Of course, Corona was not predictable, Bertschi says. And it is the first time that the cut in this amount is expected. But she also emphasizes that the communities were informed about this in June.
At the time Hollinger was still mayor, the council was composed differently. But the suspicion that she no longer supports the construction project is rejected by the successor speaker: “I was involved in the development from the beginning,” she emphasizes. After all, she was head of the construction department until the end of June. And she says: “The cathedral is still a great project.” She is confident that the project loan can be presented at the December community meeting. And Bertschi says that under current projections, tax revenue will rise again next year.
