Canton of Bern cuts taxes and saves on investments
Published: Wednesday, Dec 4th 2024, 17:40
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As part of the budget debate on Wednesday, the Bernese cantonal parliament decided to reduce taxes for natural persons by 0.5 tax tenths. This will cost CHF 79 million per year.
A proposal by the left to waive the tax cut did not stand a chance in the conservative-dominated Grand Council. During the debate in Bern's town hall, Finance Director Astrid Bärtschi (center) emphasized that the tax cut should bring Bern back into the middle of the field in the Swiss tax comparison of cantons.
After two and a half days of intensive budget debate, the 2025 budget is expected to show a surplus of CHF 242.4 million. This does not include any profit distributions from the National Bank to the cantons. The Canton of Berne is also expecting a surplus for the coming years. Debts totaling CHF 342 million are to be reduced by 2028.
Red pencil applied to investments
However, the canton will still be able to use its money, as it has a large wave of investment ahead of it: several major investment projects have to be financed by 2033, such as a road bypass in Oberaargau or the two university campuses in Bern and Biel.
It has been clear for some time that the canton will not be able to finance these projects without further ado. It therefore already took measures last year. But these alone are not enough.
"We don't want to leave the next generation with a dilapidated infrastructure or mountains of debt," said GLP councillor Tobias Vögeli, summing up the dilemma.
In the current winter session, the cantonal parliament limited the maximum new debt to CHF 550 million with regard to investments - against the wishes of the government and the left-wing Green Party. And it cut back on investment projects.
Painful decisions
Some projects that were already well advanced and widely supported, such as the construction of an educational campus in Burgdorf, had to be abandoned. This project was promised to the town years ago because it had to give up its university of applied sciences location as part of a centralization process.
The fact that the canton was now breaking this old promise and thus wasting over CHF 14 million in accumulated planning angered many members of the Grand Council. In the end, the decision was very narrowly in favor of cancelling the project.
In addition, the Grand Council canceled its contribution to the renovation of a streetcar line in the city of Berne. The tenor was that it should be replaced by buses. What went unnoticed was that the voters of the city of Berne had only recently given their unequivocal approval to the streetcar renovation.
Left-wing Green Party rejects budget
At the end of the debate, the left-green council minority was disappointed. They had not been able to push through their concerns. On the other hand, the bourgeois majority in the Council was on the move with a thick red pencil and often made the proposals of the bourgeois-dominated Government Council even more stringent.
The bourgeois policy would lead to even more government cuts and gridlock, criticized SP member of parliament Stefan Jordi. "A bitter pill for the people of the Canton of Bern", concluded Councillor Rahel Ruch on behalf of the Greens.
He sees "dawn", countered SVP councillor Samuel Krähenbühl. The path was going in the right direction. The canton was using the funds efficiently where it had set priorities, said Carlo Reinhard, member of the Grand Council of the Free Democrats.
In the end, the Grand Council approved the 2025 budget and the task and financial plan for the coming years by 101 votes to 48 with 2 abstentions.
©Keystone/SDA
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