Odesa Seeks Transfer of ₴40M State Funds for Primary School Meals

The Department of Education and Science of the Odesa City Council has asked the same department of the Odesa Regional State Administration to consider the possibility of transferring the remaining subvention from the state budget for feeding primary school children to the Odesa budget.

This was reported by Olena Buynevych, Director of the Education Department of the City Council, during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Education, Sports and Cooperation with Public Organizations of the Odesa City Council on April 8.

According to her, the need for such an operation arose because the department is running out of funds for feeding children provided by the state subvention. The fact is that feeding of primary school children and children of privileged categories in schools is co-financed from local budgets and the state budget in the ratio of 70 to 30, where 30% is financed from local budgets.

So, the idea is to collect funds from the communities of the region that have not used them and transfer them to Odesa. According to Olena Buynevych, the regional department of education has supported this proposal, but the process may be delayed.

"We know that there are leftovers of this subvention in the communities that have not used them. They have the right to transfer them to the city of Odesa. We applied to the regional department and they supported us in this. We are now working with the communities to transfer these funds, but it is a rather serious process. After all, community councils have to make a decision at their sessions," said the director of the department.

Therefore, at the commission's meeting on April 8, the department asked the deputies to agree to submit amendments to the education program aimed at separating funding for feeding children in grades 1-4 and children from privileged categories.

These amendments should separate children from privileged categories so that their feeding can be financed even if feeding of other primary school students is stopped due to lack of funds. Also, if the city budget has the funds, it will be able to provide feeding on its own.

"But we have to understand that feeding students in Odesa schools costs 700-800 thousand hryvnias from the budget. And there are other tasks that we have to fulfill. So we will have to be guided by what the financiers tell us," said Buynevych.

According to the director of the department, during the school year, Odesa's budget has already spent about 40 million on feeding students, and now, in the absence of state funds, the city will have to spend more than 20 million more.

Кирило Бойко