Yekaterinburg Duma committee for budget and economic policies looked into the city’s budget administration in 2006 to find out that last year’s revenues amounted to 15 billion RUR (which is 8.8% better than the original target figures); round about 4 billion RUR were allocated by the upper-level budgets; taxpaying local enterprises failed to transfer about 1 billion RUR worth of taxes. The budget expenditures reached 13.4 billion RUR, which falls short of the original target figures by 1.4%. Most of this was spent on education (34.5%), housing and maintenance facilities (28.4%), healthcare and sports (15%), and national expenses (6.9%). 829 million RUR was invested in strategic projects, reports the spokesperson for Yekaterinburg municipal Duma.

Members of the committee had a chance to offer their questions to the head of the city council’s Finance and Budget Department; deputy Elena Deryagina asked to clarify the issue of insufficient financing of kindergartens and nursery schools (only 90% of the planned amount was allotted); deputy Irina Ovchinnikova mentioned the need for better performance in the social policies field; deputy Evgeniy Kasimov wanted to know how much money Sphinx, the future rock-n-roll center, was going to get from the budget; deputy Alexander Sizov asked to explain when the housing and maintenance enterprises were going to be compensated for buying fuel from the suppliers; deputy Oleg Habibullin made an inquiry regarding budgetary compensations of rental payments. All the answers will be presented in writing afterwards, the spokesperson says.

The committee’s report has been sent to the other seven Duma committees and, as soon as they approve of it, the report will probably get on the Duma session agenda.