They added up the costs of waste management. Instead of residents, the commune will pay extra

• Since September 2021, an amendment to the Act on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipalities has been in force, which assumes that the municipal council may decide to subsidize the system with municipal waste from the budget.
• More and more municipalities are consciously contributing to the waste system.
• Subsidies for waste management in 2024, in the case of larger municipalities, could even reach several million zlotys.

The Andrychów local government calculated the costs of waste management and found that in order to balance the system, it should increase the fee for residents from PLN 26.50 to PLN 42.20. This increase - both the municipal authorities and councilors - considered high. Therefore, Mayor Beata Smolec proposed to increase the fee to PLN 36.50, and to supplement the remaining costs from the municipal budget.

For the councilors, even this was too much. Ultimately, they pushed through a new fee of PLN 33 per person (with a PLN 3 discount for composting). The new fee is to be in effect from June 1.

However, a fee of this amount is a "hole" in the waste system, which is supposed to be balanced, which is why the council adopted a resolution on a subsidy to the system and a second one, concerning changes to the budget, in which expenditure on waste management this year was increased by over PLN 2.9 million - informs the wrzuc.ifno portal.

It is obvious that this will affect the municipality's expenses and will most likely result in a reduction in investments. Let us add that in the case of Andrychów, the 3 million that the municipality will contribute to waste management is a significant amount, because, for example, 5 million PLN has been earmarked for road repairs in the whole of 2025.

As of 23 September 2021, an amendment to the Act on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipalities has been in force, which assumes that the municipal council may decide, by way of a resolution, to cover part of the waste management costs from its own revenues not coming from the waste management fee collected, in the event that the funds obtained from the fees are insufficient to cover the costs of operating the system or the aim is to reduce the fees collected from property owners.

This solution appealed to local governments. More and more municipalities are paying extra to the system - and not after the fact, i.e. when it turns out that the system costs have increased and it will not be possible to balance them with fees - but councils deliberately adopt resolutions in which rates are recorded below costs, assuming in advance the additional payment from the budget.

Experts emphasize that from an economic point of view, these actions are at least unwise, if not harmful, but there is no shortage of local governments that reach for such a solution in their immediate interests.

This is despite the interpretation of the RIO, which emphasises that the key principle is that the municipal waste management system should be balanced, and the decision-making body is entitled to make a decision on subsidies to the system only when statutory premises are met.

The Chamber also recalled that the possibilities arising from the content of Article 6r section 2da of the Act on Maintaining Cleanliness and Order in Municipalities "are an exception to the principle of self-balancing of the waste management system, and therefore should only apply in specific and exceptional situations."