Budget of the country

Eager search for the housing millions

The state invests in its museums. The SPÖ suspects that housing money is flowing into the new buildings.(Bild: Tschepp Markus)

According to the SPÖ, the state will have raised 22 million euros more for housing construction in 2023 than it has spent. Haslauer sees it differently.

Today, Wednesday, the provincial parliament is discussing the accounts for 2023. Governor and Finance Minister Wilfried Haslauer (ÖVP) is pleased that the 3.7 billion euro budget for the past year looks much better than expected in retrospect. According to the Court of Audit, Salzburg's debt level rose by almost 200 million euros.

This is not good news for the finance officer, but it is still more than 350 million euros better than budgeted. However, the more interesting stories are to be found in the details of the 1302-page document. The figures for housing construction, for example, show that the state received almost 210 million euros in this area last year. That is 22 million more than was spent.

For the opposition in the state parliament, not enough apartments are being built.(Bild: Jauschowetz Christian)

Egger suspects transfer to prestige projects
The SPÖ wants to know where else the surplus money has gone. It is about the income from the taxpayers' housing subsidy contribution, repaid loans, interest on current loans and federal subsidies. SPÖ leader David Egger suspects that it has ended up in various prestige projects such as museums, the festival halls and the state service center currently under construction.

"Art and culture and a modern office building for the provincial administration are important. But affordable housing for the people is at least equally important. We are demanding more money and more ideas for subsidized housing from the ÖVP and FPÖ," says Egger. Haslauer rejects this version and sees it as an abbreviated representation. An analysis of just one year is not meaningful. Particularly in the case of loans, income and expenditure were not incurred in the same year.