The Gironde departmental council will vote on Monday a review of the 2025 budget that shows a large deficit, but has a three-year “return to balance plan” to avoid being subjected to supervision. The sixth most populous department in the country, which voted in March in favor of a balanced budget forecast of 1.8 billion euros, saw its negative balance fall to 97 million euros.
The administrative account for 2024, voted after the fact, presents a deficit of 52.7 million euros, to which are added 37 million euros in delays in payments for child protection and increases in the volume of RSA benefits and disability compensation, explained the socialist president of the department, Jean-Luc Gleyze.
Fall in income from real estate transactions
He explains these financial difficulties, in particular, by the reduction of taxes on real estate transactions collected by the communities. These are taxes on transfers for consideration (DMTO), also called notarial fees, which, due to the real estate crisis, have fallen by almost 17% in one year in Gironde, according to the Court of Auditors.
His opposition denounced a lack of foresight: when the real estate market began to take a turn from 2023, he recommended anticipating a reduction in the DMTO and containing spending.
The risk of being placed under guardianship?
The law prohibits local authorities from presenting unbalanced budgets. Otherwise, the State can place them under guardianship to repair their accounts. It does not lead to a US-style budget block (mandatory expenses, such as civil servant salaries, remain guaranteed), but it can block the payment of subsidies.
This plan aims to return to net savings in 2028. Since the decentralization laws of 1982, in 1998 only the department of Guadalupe was under supervision for budgetary reasons.
Source: BFM TV
