"We are meeting the enormous challenges with a triad of necessary investments, our consolidation process and increased fundraising," explains Mayor Katja Dörner. At the same time, she is not releasing either the state of North Rhine-Westphalia or the federal government from their duty to better equip the municipalities financially for their tasks. "The implementation of an old debt subsidy, which has been discussed for many years, an increase in municipal financial equalization and an increase in the share of sales tax are urgently needed so that the many additional municipal tasks can also be financed."

Social sector

Especially in the current difficult and uncertain times, it is of great importance in the social sector to provide people with a wide range of support, assistance and advice. Providers with their diverse (advisory) services for families or refugees receive financial support. Although there has been an extensive expansion of childcare places in recent years, more places still need to be created in daycare facilities and childminders in order to meet demand and provide a supply that meets requirements. Despite an already high childcare quota, 300 places per year are to be created in open all-day care at elementary school in order to be well prepared for the state government's plans for a legal entitlement. In addition to more than 70 million euros invested in school construction measures in the double budget, the city uses its own funds - i.e. in addition to state allocations and contributions - to spend an average of 43 million euros annually as a school authority for the operation of schools and the transportation of pupils. Services in the area of educational assistance and integration assistance, i.e. supporting pupils with physical, mental and/or psychological disabilities in their everyday school life, are another major area of expenditure. Substantial funds are also made available for youth work facilities, including around 5.3 million euros for independent facilities to safeguard the work of independent providers.

Climate and mobility

Bonn aims to become climate-neutral by 2035. The climate plan consists of the overall strategy for the path to climate neutrality in Bonn as well as the "Climate Protection Work Program" with a large number of activities that the city wants to implement. The double budget includes climate plan measures and other climate protection measures amounting to around 55 million euros.

The city of Bonn is investing in a future-proof, sustainable and crisis-proof transport infrastructure. To this end, the city of Bonn is relying on a mix of modern mobility options such as buses, trains, bicycles and car sharing. The largest component of expenditure is public transport: in 2025/2026, the city will finance the services of SWB Verkehrs GmbH with around 86 million euros. Investments of around 15 million euros per year are also planned to strengthen and expand the walking and cycling infrastructure. This will not only benefit the climate, but everyone who moves around Bonn: Bonn will become a better place to live thanks to safer routes, cleaner air and less noise pollution. The city is working on more local transport projects for the mobility turnaround than it has for decades. Major infrastructure projects are progressing: a cable car will connect Bonn on the left and right banks of the Rhine, and thus many jobs and the Venusberg, without traffic jams. The Westbahn will finally connect the Hardtberg to Bonn's rail network and the new central bus station will significantly improve local transport in Bonn. At the same time, the city of Bonn is gradually working on a safe and continuous cycle path network for young and old. The city's electric charging infrastructure is also being further expanded. The city is supporting the economy by designating charging zones and business parking spaces and ensuring safe routes to school for pupils through school streets and mobility management at schools.

Digitalization

In addition to numerous digitalization projects already underway, such as chatbots for answering citizens' queries in the financial sector, the digitalization of the oldest registration file, the replacement of the outdated management system for sports facilities or the replacement of the technically outdated city map, further projects with a total volume of around 12 million euros are planned for the 2025/2026 double budget. The added value for citizens is important. Priority will be given to expanding the range of digital services that local authorities are legally obliged to provide under the Online Access Act (OZG). Innovative projects are also being planned, such as a forest fire early detection sensor system (after all, around 30 percent of Bonn's urban area is forest), a daycare planner, software to manage the subsidies that the city distributes as a funding body, or a platform to offer print media from the city libraries digitally.

However, the draft budget shows a significant deficit in each of the two years, and for the coming years there are currently signs of consistent budget deficits in the three-digit million range, which would continue to result in an erosion of assets over the years. Specifically, the city administration is forecasting a deficit of 98.7 million euros for 2025, which is to be covered entirely by the equalization reserve. The forecast deficit in 2026 is just under 170 million euros.

The income of around 1.7 billion euros is offset by expenses of around 1.8 billion euros. For example, the city expects to spend 772 million euros on social benefits, 433 million euros on personnel plus 46 million euros on pensions and 70 million euros on interest.

In the following years, deficits of 180 million euros (2027), 207 million euros (2028) and 179 million euros (2029) are expected. This shows that since the opening balance sheet was drawn up in 2008, around 843 million euros of the current equity of around one billion euros will be used up by the end of 2029 and liquidity loans will increase from 700 million euros today to almost two billion euros.

"In order to be able to present a sustainable and efficient budget again, fundamental structural changes are required on both the expenditure and income side - including a more critical review of tasks and the setting of priorities," says Bonn's city treasurer Margarete Heidler.

Therefore, the project to structurally consolidate the budget, which was launched in autumn 2023, must not only be continued, but also intensified in order to further relieve the budget in the medium term. When the budget was introduced, initial results amounting to around 50 million euros were already taken into account for the 2025/2026 double budget.

As the project progresses, the focus will now increasingly shift to topics that require more intensive detailed analyses or involve fundamental structural or procedural changes. These include, for example, potential savings in the area of municipal buildings or as part of the strategic realignment of local public transport. The establishment of a central controlling system will put the administration in a better position to carry out the necessary analyses. With the introduction of urban process management, the most promising processes with a high potential for optimization in terms of technical and organizational processes, automation and digitalization, knowledge management and risk avoidance, or a high potential for standardization, will be successively optimized over the next few years.

In the past, the city of Bonn has already successfully acquired funding from the state, federal government and the European Union. For example, it received almost 1.3 million euros for the construction of the sports hall at Tannenbusch-Gymnasium as an NRW sports school, 6.8 million euros for the planting of 1001 climate-friendly trees and the unsealing of areas, a total of around 7.4 million euros for the climate-friendly redesign of Bad Godesberg city center and Stiftsplatz and 8.3 million euros for the first construction phase on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn. The city will also continue along this path. To this end, funding management software is currently being established within the administration for the entire administration.

As the municipal triad alone will not achieve a balanced budget in the medium term, the city has clear expectations of the state and federal government to provide more financial support to cities and municipalities. "I will continue to work with the German Association of Cities to achieve this. The state in particular has so far failed to provide municipalities with sufficient funding and instead created the instrument of loss carryforwards for corona and war-related costs, which will now limit our room for maneuver in the coming decades," says the Mayor of Bonn. "Only with more support from the state and federal government can we make our municipalities fit for the future," Katja Dörner makes clear.

Procedural precautions have been taken to limit the increase in posts. In accordance with a decision by the Administrative Board, new posts are no longer introduced as a package as part of the updating of the establishment plan during budget consultations. Instead, decisions on new posts to be created are discussed politically on a case-by-case basis during the year and taken in the context of substantive decisions. In principle, such a procedure is only possible within the framework of the available budget funds.

For the 2025/2026 budget planning, the wage and salary increases that have been decided or announced have been taken into account. In addition, the necessary funds for further changes in job values and an average increase of three percent per year for personnel and pension costs have been budgeted.

According to the current management status, the planned budget funds for personnel and pension expenses are sufficient. The additional costs for changes to the staffing plan that have so far been decided retrospectively can be covered by funds from the departments concerned and, for example, by savings on vacant positions. This procedural change leads to a significant increase in flexibility in the management of posts and thus offers the opportunity to react more quickly to new demands on local government.

An increase of 16 positions is planned for the draft double budget, which have already been approved, including in connection with the 2027 town hall relocation and tax compliance management. On June 20, 2024, the Council will also be presented with further requirements for resolution, which are refinanced internally and would lead to an increase in posts.

Further information can be found on the city's website:  www.bonn.de/haushalt (opens in a new tab)