During a two-and-a-half hour public discussion on the 2008 Sofia Municipality Budget, which took place on February 8 in the city buildings, Sofia deputy mayor in charge of finance and economy Mincho Gerdjikov presented the draft budget. The city councillors will vote on the document on February 28. Up until then changes can be proposed by any city official or group, as well as by residents, non-governmental organisations and companies.

"The city's main priorities this year are to provide financing for the preparation and implementation of projects funded by European Funds, to secure money to implement ecological projects, to find solutions to the city's traffic problems and to expand and improve the quality of social services," Gerdjikov said.

The budgeted revenues for 2008 were set at nearly 870 million leva, including more than 500 million leva generated from city activities and taxes.

"The city administration will rely on reasonable taxes and payments from everybody, but will not count on high taxes and fees that residents cannot afford," Gerdjikov said during the discussion.

MP Lyuben Dilov, from Gergyovden, said that the municipality had to take more serious actions in its demands to the state to increase the taxes paid by companies transferring some or all of their capital to other companies. According to him the right thing to do was for a bigger percentage of the money paid by Sofia residents to remain in the city's coffers for its own use.

Chairperson of the Bulgaria teachers' union Yanka Takeva said she was satisfied with the measures the city had taken in respect of education, in despite of the decreased state support for education activities. For 2008 the budget for education was increased by nearly seven million leva compared to the 172.3 million leva spent by this department in 2007.

The budget for city administration was set at nearly 36.5 million leva. Last year, the city spent 35.36 million leva on administration activities. The budgeted cost of salaries, insurances, support and that of the Sofia city council was increased by about 0.3 million leva compared to total spending in 2007. The budget for health was increased to 31.23 million leva, up from an actual value of 29.19 million leva in 2007.

However, even though Gerdjikov said the city wanted to increase the quality of social services, the budget for this department was cut by about five million leva to 25.09 million leva. It was unclear how the quality would be improved on a reduced budget.

The budget for utilities and public services was increased by about five million leva to 128.76 million leva for 2008. Within this, the budget for planting and building new green areas increased from an actual spending of just over seven million leva in 2007 to nearly 10 million leva for 2008.

The amount the city plans to spend on its water supply and sewerage systems was also increased, to 3.64 million leva. In 2007 1.747 million leva were spent in this area.

Municipal companies will receive a nearly two million leva boost in 2008, as the finance for their maintenance was budgeted at 12.26 million leva.

About 10.5 million leva has been put aside to finance defence and security in 2008, an increase of 2.2 million leva. In 2007 the amount spent was just more than 8.3 million leva.

The amount to be spent on cultural development, however, was increased by only one million leva to a total budget of 15.802 million. While the sport and physical education budget was decreased from an actually value of 1.525 million leva in 2007 to 1.098 million leva in the 2008.

Sofia municipality plans to spend 120 000 leva on tourism in 2008, an increase compared with the 96 900 leva that was spent in 2007.

To help fight the enormous traffic jams in the city, Sofia municipality has budgeted 18 million leva to be spent on improving traffic lights and road signs. This also include spending on street lighting. In 2007, the city spent 17.15 million leva on these activities.

Gerdjikov also said that the main priority to reduce traffic congestion in Sofia in 2008 was the completion of the metro extension to Sofia's second largest district - Mladost - and the opening of the line in early 2009. He announced that a second metro line would be started and would run between the Nadezhda and Lozenets districts. The groundbreaking for this project would be in June, Gerdjikov said.

The amount budgeted to be spent on street repairs and maintenance was also increased, from an actual expenditure of 29.753 million leva in 2007 to 37.016 million leva in 2008. The plan to build more bicycle lanes would be funded from this budget, the city said.

During the discussion, participants of which included representatives from the association Bikevolution (BE), the Green Party, the Institute for the development of the public environment, the Association of Bulgarians with Asthma and the company Cantus Firmus, deputy mayor for transport Velizar Stoilov said about one million leva had been put aside for repairing Tsar Boris III Boulevard. Parallel to this road was the only asphalt bicycle lane in Sofia. Stoilov said the money in this budget would also finance the repair of the existing bike lane but, when challenged by BE, he did not say how the money would be distributed and how much would be used to repair the bike line. However, he did invite the BE representative to his office to show them the detailed description of the project.

BE submitted its suggestions to the city in relation to the budget for 2008. The association has proposed that the municipality holds a further public meeting to discuss the amount of money in the budget provided for bicycle infrastructure. BE believes a significant part of the budget for street repairs and maintenance should be spent on improving this infrastructure.