Brussels municipal authorities have raised concerns about the potential financial impact of measures that De Wever's government plans to introduce, L'Echo reports.
Experts from Brulocalis, the association of local authorities in the Brussels-Capital Region, estimated that the changes will cost the communes up to €1.65 billion by 2029. This is due mainly to the reforms on unemployment benefits, personal income tax, pensions, and police zones.
"The impact of these measures on Brussels' municipalities and CPASs would be quite significant. We have made an overall estimate, based on full measures, which indicate a deficit of almost half a billion euros per year from 2029 onwards," William Verstappen, advisor at Brulocalis, explained to L'Echo.
The government soon intends to reform how social security is handled. The changes will transfer a large part of the financial management of the Public Centres for Social Welfare (CPAS) to the region. But many of the CPAS in Brussels have structural problems and staffing problems which will make them ill equipped to deal with an influx of claimants and the administration that brings.
The Public Centre for Social Welfare of the City of Brussels. Credit: Belga / Siska Gremmelprez
Limiting unemployment benefits after two years for employees younger than 55 is calculated to affect around 45,000 Brussels residents. Out of these, around 60% require social welfare assistance from the capital's CPAS – amounting to around 27,000 people relying on their services.
In the Brussels-Capital Region, the number of people receiving the Social Integration Income (RIS) would rise from around 44,000 to 74,500. Georgy Manalis, President of the Brussels federation of CPAS, expects this would cost between €20 and €25 million to hire the social workers to manage the flow of these new cases.
Verstappen expressed doubts about the government's plan to put in place a bonus-malus system, which will reward CPAS that are performing well and penalise those that are not. "The funding CPAS will now be conditional on how many people it gets back into employment – this is a totally new mechanism." Previously, the CPASs have always been provided funding according to their requirements rather than their results.
For Manalis, the changes pose a huge challenge to the region's CPAS, which not only will need a much larger workforce but also a new working method to handle the cases. Faced with the feared influx of people turning to the CPAS in the future, Brulocalis is considering a way of dealing with it. The idea could be to work in quotas.
Public sector pensions and tax reform
Besides the changes to social welfare centres, the Arizona government will put the pension cost of retired public sector workers on municipalities. This is projected to cost Brussels municipalities an additional €40 million every year from 2029. Brulocalis questions how local authorities will cope with this pension burden.
Brulocalis also estimates that the tax reform could create a shortfall of €25 million for the finances of the Brussels municipalities by 2029. This is more than the Michel government's tax shift (€24 million).
