In Mykolaiv, lawmakers reallocated budget funds for children's meals

In Mykolaiv, city council members voted to reallocate budget funds to provide free meals for children in the city’s kindergartens. The funds will be taken from loan guarantees for municipal utilities.

This was discussed during an extraordinary session of the Mykolaiv City Council, which was broadcast by Intent.

Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych explained that even when the budget was being adopted, council members realized there would not be enough funds. According to him, the budget covered only 84% of the city’s annual needs, including meals in educational institutions.

The mayor added that the city had appealed to the Cabinet of Ministers and received a subsidy last week; however, this subsidy did not cover meals in kindergartens.

Hanna Lychko, head of the Department of Education, reported that the total funding requirement for schools and kindergartens amounts to 250 million 185 thousand hryvnias, while only slightly over 122 million 473 thousand has been allocated. By the end of the year, an additional 127 million hryvnias will be needed, of which:

• 80.6 million for kindergartens;
• 40 million for co-financing school meals.

Senkevych noted that the government has changed its approach to funding school meals. Previously, the government covered 70% of the costs, but starting September 1, it will only provide food, while the local budget will fund the organization of meals.

This raised the question of where to obtain the funds. The mayor said they decided to use money that had been set aside as a loan guarantee.

However, the allocated funds will not fully cover the costs of meals in kindergartens—there will still be a shortfall of 60 million hryvnias. In total, over 200 million had been set aside for the guarantee, and now the loan funds and the guarantee together amount to 195 million.

Councilmember Andriy Yantar called the situation strange, noting that during the previous session, the council had granted the company “Nibulon” a tax break worth 18 million hryvnias, and reminded everyone that council members are responsible for balancing the budget.

Senkevych replied that the tax break for “Nibulon” had already been discussed at length during the previous session.

Councilmember Serhiy Kantor noted that when the budget was adopted, analysts had warned of violations of budget legislation, but the mayor had insisted at the time that the approaches were correct. According to Kantor, the current problems stem precisely from that decision.

Hanna Lychko, head of the Department of Education, explained that since the start of the full-scale war, the number of children in eligible categories has increased significantly.

“When we began opening kindergartens during the full-scale invasion in July 2023, only 27% of our children belonged to priority groups. By the following year, that figure had risen to 45%. Today, it stands at 71%. Meals for these children are funded by the local budget,” noted Hanna Lychko.

According to the voting results, 29 out of 30 deputies who participated in the vote supported the budget amendments. The decision was adopted.

Ірина Глухова