Because of municipal funds

New rebuke from the Court of Audit to the state government

The Municipal Equalization Fund also paid out for sewage treatment plants.

(Bild: Gerhard Schiel)

The auditors of the State Court of Audit have criticized the loose disbursement of money by the municipal fund. As a result, money also went to institutions other than municipalities and their associations.

The State Court of Audit is critical of the generous disbursement practices of the state's Municipal Equalization Fund. This fund has the task of promoting cooperation between municipalities and supporting structurally weak areas. This involves a lot of money. In the three years of the audit from 2021 to 2023, the fund paid out a total of almost 400 million euros.

The State Court of Auditors does not find all of this to be in order. For example, between 6.9 and 8.4 million euros were paid out annually to legal entities other than municipalities and municipal associations. Millions of euros went to the transport association and the rural road maintenance fund. "This will no longer happen, we will pay this out directly to the municipalities," said the office of the responsible provincial deputy Stefan Schnöll (ÖVP).

Another point of criticism from the auditors: one municipality deliberately provided false information when submitting the application so that the project would still fall within the permissible funding framework. In this specific case, the funding was then paid out according to the corrected information, emphasizes the state. Nevertheless, Schnöll has announced that the information provided by the municipalities will be checked more closely in future. In the event of deliberately false information, sanctions by the state should also be possible in future.