The Storting has decided that these merged counties will be divided again: Viken will become Akershus, Buskerud and Østfold Troms and Finnmark will become two counties again Vestfold and Telemark will become two counties In addition, the old Haram municipality will be separated from the new Ålesund and there will be two municipalities About Søgne and Songdalen leave Kristiansand is still unclear. The municipal council in Kinn decided yesterday not to apply for dissolution. County and municipal divisions will cost well over half a billion, according to estimates from the Storting and the various counties and municipalities earlier this year. Tight times The Støre government promised early this year that the state would cover the costs of the division of some of the unpopular mergers from the Solberg government’s time. But that promise came before the Ukraine war, energy crisis and interest rate hikes. The message now is that it is time for the state to save. MANTRA: Finance Minister Vedum (Sp) gives a lecture on restraining spending. Photo: Kai Rune Kvitstein / news – Much of what we have in the platform must either wait and be taken later or be seen aside in the situation we are in now, said Prime Minister Støre to E24 recently about the legislation from the government negotiations in Hurdal. Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said in his budget speech last week that the government must set other political priorities because the world is different than when the Hurdal platform was created. Standing by the team news has asked municipal minister Sigbjørn Gjelsvik how he views the dissolution bill in the dire financial situation. – We have said that we will cover the necessary costs, says Gjelsvik. – So previous laws stand by, even if someone has said that other laws will be difficult to fulfill due to tight financial room for action? – Yes, what we have said is that the municipalities and counties which will now be allowed to become their own counties and municipalities again after the decision, will be allowed to cover the necessary one-off costs. But within certain limits, he emphasizes to news. – It is important that they show moderation – only necessary costs are covered, we receive the applications during the autumn and process them then. In a letter this summer from the ministry to the counties and the one municipality concerned, it is defined what will be covered. Unknown bill But how much do the solutions actually cost? Neither the government nor anyone else knows that answer yet. Only on November 8 will counties and municipalities submit a final budget in an application to the state. At that point, it has been a month since the Minister of Finance presented his state budget. But ahead of the resolution on dissolution, an estimate was made of the costs: In addition, the Storting has assumed that the state will receive expenses for various state registers and ICT expenses of at least NOK 133 million. Total sum: Well over half a billion before the price increase we have seen this year. news has been in contact with the various county and municipal administrations concerned. They will not say anything about how they think the expenses for liquidation will develop. The detailed budget work is being done right now, but several of them express particular uncertainty linked to the ICT expenditure. Høgre’s municipal policy spokesperson Mudassar Kapur is critical of the spending. FINAL SUM: Høgres Mudassar Kapur wonders what the final sum for the dissolutions will be. Photo: Torstein Boe / Torstein Boe – Nobody knows what the final bill will be, and nobody knows how the government intends to cover that bill and how the county will take care of it. This is absolutely not predictable. He thinks the bill will be higher. Incorrect use of resources – I think the final costs could be even higher. And at least if you think from a societal perspective, says Kapur and refers to the human resources that are used to transform organizations rather than create services. – But these expenses are coming now because parts of the municipal and regional reform from the Solberg government were poorly anchored? – It is not true that it was poorly anchored. We must not forget that both municipal reform and regional reform had a broad process in which all counties and municipalities participated. Also in Viken, which this government likes to call a forced merger, there was a broad process where Ap and SP’s own politicians thought it was time to carry out a reform. The centre-party-led Ministry of Local Government and District Affairs has itself calculated that the direct costs linked to the municipal and regional reform under the Solberg government cost NOK 3.2 billion. – The irresponsible thing is what the previous government did, forced mergers and without good enough analysis in many contexts. Now we listen, then we receive applications from the individuals that we go through, and then we make sure that they cover the necessary costs and then we get a good sharing process, says Gjelsvik. But he admits that he does not know the total bill for the government’s sharing project. – What cost figures are you referring to? – Now we are waiting for the applications, and then we will go through them and come back to the amount. – So you don’t know as of now? – We have set up a process where they must go through what costs are involved. We have to follow that process, then we will get back to the costs when we have processed the applications.
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Repeat the promise to pay for division – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
