6 million is found in the state budget for the restoration of highways and transit roads

The Latvian Association of Local Governments (LPS) and the Ministry of Transport (SM) agreed on Wednesday in the annual negotiations on the necessary additional funding for the restoration and maintenance of the country’s local highways and transit roads, the availability of public transport and the provision of postal services in the regions, representatives of the LPS informed the agency LETA.

LPS states that the parties agreed on the need to provide an additional 6.15 million euros in the state budget in order to ensure the amount of co-financing for the maintenance and construction of transit roads corresponding to the current situation.

Taking into account the agreements of the Cabinet of Ministers and the LPS – the disagreement protocol, the MoU in cooperation with local governments has developed a new policy for financing transit roads, which will improve their technical condition.

The new approach provides that from now on all transit streets with an intensity of 500 vehicles will receive 75% co-financing from the state budget for the daily maintenance of the roadway. For transit streets connecting important places with an intensity of 1,200 vehicles per day, the co-financing of the state budget for the renewal of the road surface will be 75%, according to LPS.

On the other hand, 50% for the construction of connecting transit streets with an intensity of 1,200 vehicles per day, including the rebuilding of the bridge or overpass that is part of it.

Also, an agreement was reached in the negotiations that the MoU will request an additional 20 million euros per year from the state budget for the improvement of the country’s local highways in the next three years.

In order to restore the country’s local roads, at least 40 million euros must be invested every year, however, currently, an average of 26 million euros per year is earmarked for this purpose from the state budget, according to LPS.

During the negotiations, the parties also agreed on the maintenance of the country’s local roads. It is planned to make changes in regulatory acts, providing special road maintenance procedures for those sections of roads on which the vehicles of public transport service providers and municipalities move when transporting schoolchildren.

Accordingly, the maintenance will be carried out not only according to the class suitable for the road, but according to the social importance, where mainly the maintenance of the road should be carried out as a priority in order to ensure the transportation of schoolchildren and the movement of public transport.

The parties also discussed the future policy of targeted grants for municipal roads and streets for 2025.

The LPS informs that the financing for local governments determined in the last two years does not correspond to the determined ratio between the state and local governments, as a result of which financial resources were allocated to local governments by 6.4 million euros less than stipulated in the Highway Law.

The Union states that there are currently no specific criteria for the total amount of targeted grants, as it is foreseen according to the possibilities of the state budget, however, there are certain goals where financial resources should be invested, but the upper goal and the minimum amount of funds that the state is trying to achieve with the allocation of targeted grants have not been defined.

In the LPS negotiations, it was emphasized that the ever-increasing disproportion should be eliminated immediately by increasing the share of local governments until the 2008 funding amount is reached.

While discussing the direction of the reform of the school network, LPS and SM agreed to continue cooperation in determining priority road sections to be repaired. The said reform will require significant financial resources for road repair works, as mainly the state regional and local gravel roads in bad condition will have to be restored in order to ensure the safe arrival of students to educational institutions, LPS notes.

The parties also concluded that the current base funding poses serious risks to the availability of public transport.

LPS points out that there is still a trend that the state budget base does not include funding for covering the obligations assumed by the state or for the fulfillment of concluded contracts, adding that currently there is a shortage of 14.71 million euros for passenger transportation by public transport. During the discussions, the parties agreed that the MoU together with the Road Transport Directorate will prepare an informative report on the measures to be taken to attract additional funding for public transport services in 2024.

Also, in September of this year, in the National Economy Committee of the LPS, the MoU will provide updated information on the amount of additional necessary funding in 2025.

On the other hand, in connection with the introduction of new tariffs for public transport services, the LPS emphasized that it also affected school transport in many places, creating an additional financial burden, therefore the parties agreed to jointly develop the justification for the request for additional funding for the year 2024 in the provision of public transport services and their changes under the influence of the reform of the school network.

In the negotiations, LPS also noted the new strategy developed by VAS “Latvijas pasts”, where the union emphasized that it is important to talk with each municipality individually and agree on a network of post offices in the specific territory in order to ensure the availability of the service to residents and to find a solution in postal payment systems.

At the same time, LPS calls on the MoU to define the non-financial goals of “Latvijas pasta” in order to reduce the impact of the review of the network of post offices on recipients of postal services and to ensure the continuity of the postal payment system.

In the view of the LPS, there is currently no common opinion on the possibilities of achieving the target indicators in connection with the implementation of the principles of climate neutrality in the field of transport, therefore the union calls on the MoU to start negotiations with the Ministry of Climate and Energy and the Ministry of Economy.

LPS will ensure participation in working groups to solve this issue.

LETA already reported that the annual negotiations of the LPS and SM took place on Wednesday, where the parties discussed important issues for local governments in the field of roads, public transport, postal services and reducing the bureaucratic burden.