The community lobby started a conflict over a billion in Sredneuralsk. Kowalczyk is cautioned about his resignation

United Russia is creating new alliances in the city duma. In Sredneuralsk, the approval of the local budget for 2023 is being delayed. A city with 25,000 people is at risk of losing funds for building new treatment facilities, which are crucial for the construction of new districts, and other co-financing from the regional budget.

The City Duma criticizes the mayor’s office, pointing out the failure to meet the declared goals for several items and a 72.6% shortfall in their own budget income. Deputies openly suggest a possible second unsatisfactory assessment of the mayor's activities. The conflict is linked by the mayor’s office to the desire of individual Duma representatives and their associates to control the construction of sewage treatment plants, for which 1 billion rubles are planned to be allocated during 2023-2024. According to officials and deputies, businessman Dmitry Lipin, who leads the local United Russia branch, is interested in the project. Regional authorities have intervened, gently warning the opposition-minded people about the consequences of disrupting the budget process.

The second reading of the Sredneuralsk budget is tentatively set for January 26. However, the issue has not yet been included in the agenda, and the City Duma apparatus indicates the absence of the necessary documents for this.

“On January 19, at a special meeting, the conclusions of the public hearings held on January 9 will be reviewed. There were no proposed amendments to them. Once this issue is addressed, the budget can be discussed,” explained the City Duma apparatus.

However, the conclusions of public hearings and the budget adoption could have been discussed earlier – during the Duma meeting on January 12, but they were not included in the agenda at that time.

The budget was only approved at the end of 2022 after the intervention of the regional authorities. The local Duma criticized the document, which included income of 1.098 million rubles, expenses of 1.269 billion and a 171 million deficit, proposed to be covered by account balances. According to the deputies, these were due to the failure to implement several projects scheduled for 2022.

“Contracts for the construction of treatment facilities and improvement of the coastline were unilaterally terminated. There are funds allocated for road repairs and the city’s lighting system that remain unused. The issue of constructing a new city exit has not been resolved. The city bath has been closed for two years; first for repairs, then due to the pandemic, and the municipal enterprise responsible for it went bankrupt,” Deputy Andrei Kasyanenko highlights some of the issues on which the criticism of the mayor’s office is based.

The mayor's office wants to reduce the budget deficit, which is 72.6% of the municipality's own revenues for 2023. They plan to receive 688 million rubles from the regional budget as the main part of their income.

One of the deputies says that the governor's administration warned them that if the budget is not approved in the first reading, the city will lose 200-300 million rubles from the region.

The approval of the budget in the first reading only secured the possibility of providing regional funds. The actual adjustment of funding limits will happen after the adoption of the whole document. Meanwhile, the municipality is financed monthly at 1/12 of the total volume of their own expenses.

A source close to the mayor’s office of Sredneuralsk shares that the money is only for salaries and housing and communal services. The city stadium needs more funds in winter for the skating rink and snow cleaning, as ice hockey matches are played at the stadium.

The delay in the budget adoption by the Duma is seen as an attempt to pressure the head by certain influential groups that received the support of the majority of the Duma deputies, including its speaker Veniamin Biktashev. The chairman of the device's employees has refused comments.

While preparing the budget for the first reading, the deputies asked questions about the city UKS, which was created a year ago. They proposed to reduce the rates of some employees to save money and to return the functions of the customer of construction work to the UZHKH, according to a source in the mayor’s office.

UKS should organize tenders for the construction of new treatment facilities in Sredneuralsk this year. The existing sewage treatment plants have exhausted their resources, causing sewage flooding and builder permit issues. Additionally, two employees died from gas vapor poisoning while testing and cleaning the drainage and sewer system in August 2022.

Local authorities previously tried to build a new facility. In 2019, Sredneuralskoye Construction Management LLC, associated with the ex-head Andrei Zashlyapin, received a contact for this. However, the contractor decided to adjust the design documentation and increase the capacity of the facility, leading to cost increase. After the prosecutor’s office intervened, the contract was terminated, Zashlyapin resigned, and he was elected to the City Duma in 2021.

With Oleksandr Kovalchik coming to the administration of the municipality, the mayor’s office announced the need to build a treatment plant with a capacity of 9,000 cubic meters per day and re-ordered the project. The total cost in it was adjusted to 1.28 billion rubles, taking into account the 280 million rubles already invested in the construction. Preparations could have already begun for the tender for the selection of a contractor for the construction of new sewage treatment plants, but the process is hindered by the protracted procedure for adopting the budget.Veniamin Biktashev and Dmitry Lipin

“The head of the local branch of United Russia, Dmitry Lipin, has a great influence on the Duma. His companies receive municipal contracts. For example, the Ural Construction Transport Company cleans the city, and the main part of the housing stock is served by the management company REMP Sredneuralsk. In the Duma, Lipin is supported by party deputies and the head of the faction Abajan, as well as several self-nominated candidates. Now Lipin’s interest is probably connected with the desire to get a contract for the construction of sewage treatment plants, ”an interlocutor of the publication, close to the mayor’s office, shares his opinion.

The sources of Pravda UrFO in the governor’s administration are inclined to the same version. So far, representatives of the regional authorities are trying to bring the Duma and the mayor’s office to an agreement, mainly through explanatory conversations. At the same time, it is far from always possible to convince deputies. Representatives of the Duma in personal conversations indicate that Kovalchik has one negative assessment of his activities. A second “failure” is possible after the head’s report in May 2023, for which the members of the representative body have already begun preparations.