{"id":97843,"date":"2024-10-23T09:11:04","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T09:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/have-fallen-into-the-luxury-trap-buskerud\/"},"modified":"2024-10-23T09:11:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T09:11:06","slug":"have-fallen-into-the-luxury-trap-buskerud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/have-fallen-into-the-luxury-trap-buskerud\/","title":{"rendered":"– Have fallen into the luxury trap – Buskerud"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a slalom hill in Drammen it says “keep the schools”, and the white letters are visible from large parts of the city centre. Due to the financial crisis, six schools were placed on a list of those that may be closed. Now five of them may be saved. In Kongsberg, three schools are at risk. These municipalities are not unique, they are two of many \u2013 because three out of four manage against a deficit. And the situation is not much better in the county municipalities. In Innlandet, six upper secondary schools are at risk. – We have known this for decades, it has been in perspective messages for 20 years. Everyone has heard about this wave of the elderly, as something diffuse, that once there, there will be a big wave of the elderly. Now it is here. It starts now, says senior adviser H\u00e5vard Moe at KS Konsulent. Do the politicians “feel” too much If you drive the straightest road, and eventually get to the E6, it is 1,004 kilometers from the town hall in Drammen to the corresponding building in Mo i Rana. There, the state of affairs is completely different. Photo: Gorm Kallestad \/ NTB \u2013 It is in many ways a municipality that was where the “entire” Municipality of Norway is now. Then they took action, says H\u00e5vard Moe. Rana municipality is the fourth largest in Norway in terms of area, and with just under 26,000 inhabitants, it is a quarter of Drammen in terms of population. The Terra case in 2007 hit Rana hard, and then there was a gathering in B\u00e5n. – “This money does not exist, we have now used it up. They are gone. So we have to solve this.\u201d That’s what they thought. And then they learned the concept of scavenging for sustenance, adjustment and austerity. But on the way, schools had to be closed. A bailout, to get it going. Moe believes many people can learn from Rana. – They are very knowledge-driven. Much of Kommune-Norge is emotionally driven. They “feel” that they have poor services. Rana prepares detailed knowledge bases and analyzes for politicians, he says. Fresh produce Municipal director in Rana, Robert Pettersen, knows very well what colleagues around the country are going through now. Because they have been there themselves. – We succeeded, but this is fresh produce. Municipal director Robert Pettersen i Rana believes they succeeded by being realistic. Photo: Frank Nyg\u00e5rd \/ news Rana stopped spending money they didn’t have. And made some choices and directions that were necessary, even if they weren’t popular. Major restructuring and streamlining in the municipality. Painful cuts, were effective cuts. Cost growth should not be higher than income growth. – We had 16 schools, now we have 10. We had secondary schools in all the districts. We have taken them away, and now we have a secondary school close to the center in two buildings with over 800 pupils. – How was the mood with you when people realized that schools were in danger? – Just like we see pictures of several places now. And the reactions are understandable. But we really didn’t want to become part of the Robek gang, and had a majority in the municipal council who had the back to bear it. We had to deal with reality, and not just wish for a different reality. – Falling into the luxury trap H\u00e5vard Moe in KS is surprised that the politicians are surprised. – This is happening all over Norway, and there are several simultaneous reasons for it. Costs in the municipal sector have increased greatly, as for all of us. Everything has become more expensive, without the state fully financing it. At the same time, the municipalities have borrowed a lot of money in recent years. – They have essentially fallen into the luxury trap, and forgotten that this has to be paid for. So when interest rates rise, they have to spend much more of the money on interest and repayments, and less on salaries and services to citizens, he explains. In recent years, tax revenues have fallen sharply in Norway, and the municipalities, which receive 40 percent of their income from taxes, are affected. – And then there will be major demographic changes in Norway, in that there will be many more elderly people, and fewer children, and then we will have to shift resources from the school sector to nursing and care. Activist dolls along the road In several places in the country, there are now actions against school closures, and there are public meetings and debates. Vestbygda school in Drammen was on the cut list. Parents believe it gives the children both a long and dangerous journey to school in Konnerud. Photo: Stian Haraldsen \/ news – Have the politicians followed closely enough? – We can take Buskerud as an example. Right now there are 12,000 residents over the age of 80 in the county. In 20 years, that number will be 26,000. There will be more new residents over the age of 80 in the next two years than there have been in the previous 25 years combined. We knew this, we just didn’t want to deal with it. – How is that possible? – No, it’s probably not good politics, because it’s not popular politics. After all, we have been through a continuous upswing in Norway, which no other comparable country can point to. We have accumulated an improbable amount of oil money over the past 20 years. – Then we can just continue with it in the world’s richest country, but that doesn’t solve anything. We will run out of labor long before we run out of money. Senior advisor H\u00e5vard Moe believes the politicians have slept through the hour. Photo: Olav R\u00f8li \/ news H\u00e5vard Moe says there are three things that drive costs in municipalities: Productivity and efficiency: – It is unbelievably slow in some municipalities because they have had so much money. But not everyone is the same. There are municipalities where the employees fly off their feet, and other places where the clock drags on towards half past four. Structure: – The more you spread things out, the more expensive it becomes. This is about school and nursery structures, but also about how close you are to the town hall. If everyone sits in cell offices, it is much more expensive than if you have an office landscape. Level and threshold: – How easy is it to enter the nursing home or cultural school? How easy is it to be assigned special education at school? There are vast differences in how much access there is to services in Municipality Norway. Celebrity anger On Tuesday last week, parents and young people barked together with politicians at Fredrik Solvang’s “Debatten”, to discuss school closures in the interior. Several celebrities have also thrown themselves into the fray. – There has never been so much involvement here since the war, said chef, author and TV profile Arne Brimi, who is from Lom. – Identity, culture, well-being and quality of life are not something you build in nice buildings. Where I live, we manage Jotunheimen, which people want to visit. In a few years, when they will demolish an opera house and a Munch museum in Oslo, the mountains will still be there. And then people must live there. Tom Str\u00e6te Lagergren, who is best known under the stage name Matoma, gave an indignant speech in “The Debate”. – I am so disappointed, and I am so sorry. Time and again there are empty promises. Youth and children are the heart and soul of society. And if you take the school away from a local community, that village dies, said the 33-year-old from \u00c5snes. Education Minister Kari Nessa Nordtun does not want to intervene, and puts the responsibility on local democracy: – It is the local politicians who make the decisions. They are the ones in charge, and they are the ones closest to the schools. Political commentator in news, Lars Nehru Sand, believes that the similarity between Dokka and Drammen is greater than the population would suggest. “The debate about school structure has everything, except simple solutions. The situation in Innlandet is just a foretaste of what we have in store,” writes Sand. – Schools must be closed Back in Rana. Two years ago, the first sod was broken for a new airport there. This is how the Arctic Circle Airport in Rana can look, under the northern lights. Illustration: Nordic office of Architecture – A new, large airport has not been built in Norway since Gardermoen. A prerequisite for achieving this was a solid contribution from the municipality. Community development costs money, and we would not have had the opportunity without the restructuring, says the municipal director. – In order to be able to develop, you have to have control over operations. Municipal analyst H\u00e5vard Moe will probably land there one day, when the airport is ready in a couple of years. He travels Norway around 200 days a year, to assist municipalities with finances, strategy and management. He knows where the shoe presses and that it is very tight. – Is there any way other than closing schools? – No, it is not. In that case, the state must put significantly more money on the table. But in any case, it will eventually end up with bad schools, with extremely expensive and unqualified labour. Dagny Taraldsen H\u00f8stlom (4) demonstrated for Danvik school in Drammen. Photo: Eirik Koren \/ news – Saved from total disaster Moe uses Drammen, where just over 100,000 people live, as an example: Expenditures for nursing and care will increase by NOK 380 million over the next four years. At the same time, the need for primary school, nursery school and childcare will fall by 160 million. The state bases its allocation on the fact that Drammen moves this money from upbringing to nursing and care, and therefore only offers the difference of 220 million. – The municipal board can choose not to close down schools and kindergartens, and then the nursing and care services will be relatively worse, says Moe. People in the action groups have children of school age, and parents who are approaching the elderly. They believe the municipalities must find the money elsewhere. But it is not that easy, says H\u00e5vard Moe. – The municipalities are very much about health, care and education. The two sectors take 70 percent of the budget. – In a municipality, it is basically the two things that stand between, or you have to turn up everything from user payments and property tax. – Rana succeeded, but they couldn’t save all the schools? – No, but they saved the municipal economy from total collapse.
\n

\n
ttn-69 <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a slalom hill in Drammen it says “keep the schools”, and the white letters are visible from large parts of the city centre. Due to the financial crisis, six schools were placed on a list of those that may be closed. Now five of them may be saved. In Kongsberg, three schools are at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[263,1414,2131,8321],"class_list":["post-97843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-buskerud","tag-fallen","tag-luxury","tag-trap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}