Almost half of the municipalities in Andalusia and Castile-La Mancha have not presented their accounts, as required by regulations. The local Treasury regulation law provides that the 2022 balance sheets must be available before October 15 of last year at the Court of Auditors (TCU) and, however, These municipalities had not yet done so as of June 30. Actually, only 13% of Andalusian municipalities and 23% of La Mancha municipalities complied with their obligation on time.
The level of surrender is not homogeneous in all the autonomous communities nor in all the provinces, but despite this, the Court particularly highlights that more than 70% of the municipalities in the provinces of Huelva, Córdoba, Almería and Cuenca have not presented their financial reports even at the end of 2023. In the case of Cuenca and Almería, however, the outlook is even worse, since the provincial councils themselves are responsible for helping small entities meet this obligation and have also broke the rules at the end of the year.
The situation in the most populated local entities does not vary excessively. In addition, almost half of the town halls have evaded the law of general capitulation. SO, only 45% of local entities have reported to date. Although non-compliance with the regulations is noted, according to the Court, “regardless of the means available to the entity”, there are municipalities with 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants which also stand out for the presentation of their results offbeat financials. .
Among them, for example, Town halls in cities like Barcelona, Malaga and Seville failed to meet their obligation in October, the worst case being that of the Andalusian capital, who only submitted the report last June. Nevertheless, there are entities in more unfavorable conditions that have directly violated the regulations completely, such as the municipalities of Jaén, Marbella and Jerez de la Frontera. The Court warns that they have not yet presented their accounts, a situation which occurs in 21% of municipalities.
This scenario clashes with the compliance obtained by some local entities of the autonomous communities of Valencia, Aragon, Madrid, Galicia and Catalonia, which are those that recorded the highest waiver rates at the end of 2023. They even exceeded 95 % of financial reports. This situation is striking because, according to the TCU, “it happens that its regional regulations prohibit access to subsidies or public aid to entities that are not up to date with their responsibilities”. The Court insists at this stage on “the effectiveness of this type of measures”, which results in the improvement of repurchase rates.
In any case, there is a reality: there are more than 2,000 localities that do not send their accounts within the legal deadline set for this purpose and, moreover, it is a situation that repeats itself year after year. year. To this it must be added that there are still 2,714 entities that have not even submitted reports in the last three years. “There is no justification” which motivates municipalities not to respect the legal deadline set. “It’s not a lack of resources, but of interest.”said the Court.
Debt, on the rise
Another parameter that attracts attention is that the debt of municipalities increased by 3% at the end of 2023 compared to the previous year, reaching 18.144 million euros, according to the latest data published by the Ministry of Finance. Local entities are thus returning to the pre-pandemic era when the debt amounted to 18.97 billion euros. The problem worsens when more than half of municipalities have failed to reduce their public debt and every year they carry responsibilities that they can hardly cope with. Indeed, in 2022, the average level of debt of local entities increased by 11%, according to the Court of Auditors.
The case of Madrid
Madrid has been the most indebted municipality in Spain for more than five years. Last year, the municipality recorded liabilities of 1,960 million euros, increased its precarious financial situation by 12.76%. The Spanish capital leads, along with Barcelona and Jerez de la Frontera, the ranking of local entities with the highest accumulated liabilities.
Jerez, in fact, quadruples the debt of cities like Valencia with financial commitments of 967 million euroswhich, although it was one of the few local entities to have reduced its debt by 20.76%, recorded a debt of 186 million euros. It is therefore not surprising that on September 19, Airef (Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility) described the moment in the municipality of Cádiz as a “critical situation”.
In collaboration with the Valencian entity, The cases of Zaragoza, Gandia and Málaga are also striking. All have managed to reduce their liabilities compared to the last two years. On the other hand, Parla, for example, accumulates a debt of more than 507,000 at the end of 2023, which represents an increase of 6.87% compared to the previous year. In fact, it comes in sixth position among the municipalities with the highest accumulated liabilities.
Given these results, Airef does not consider a return to a sustainable financial situation possible and “requests information on possible liabilities from all local administrations in order to complete the analysis with a qualitative assessment to adequately classify their financial situation.” risk”. However, they plan to improve the national councils’ bottom line through an emergency plan, supported by the Ministry of Finance.
