On Thursday, the Alytus City Municipal Council discussed the fixed fee for children attending nurseries and the price of their meals for the longest time.
A draft solution and even two alternatives have been prepared for this issue.
The essence of the draft decision and alternatives
Dispersal project:
Parents of children educated according to pre-school and pre-school education programs are suggested to be identified 25.00 A fixed monthly fee of EUR. (Until now they paid 15 EUR – ed.)
The draft decision also provides for an increase in the fee for feeding children: feeding children up to 3 years old for each day – 4.10 EUR; up to 7 years for each day – 4.40 EUR; from 6 to 7 years for each day – 2.20 EUR during the education process, and after the end of the education process – 4.40 EUR for each day. (Until now, prices per day were 1 EUR lower – ed.)
Alternative for the Culture, Education and Sports Committee:
It is proposed to increase the fixed monthly fee for children under preschool and pre-school education programs to 18.00 EUR.
Meal prices are offered as in the draft decision.
The alternative of the council member Valerijus Venciaus:
It is proposed to keep the fixed monthly fee the same as before – 15 EUR
It is proposed to raise the prices for meals not by 1 euro per day, as proposed in the draft decision, but 0.6 Eur.
There are many arguments in the discussions
Vytuolis Valūnas, the head of the Education and Sports Department, who presented the question, did not hide that he had received five e-mails from parents asking them not to raise prices. “It’s an unpopular political decision, but councilors have to do it sometimes. In my opinion, increasing these taxes is inevitable”, said V. Valūnas.
Valerijus Vencius, the council member proposing an alternative decision project, said that he was suspicious of this price jump.
“I am suspicious, I do not agree that the fixed tax should be raised even above 60%. I looked at the indicators of the Department of Statistics, last year the price of the food basket increased by 16 percent, and why are we already raising 30 percent in advance? Parents rightly ask the question, what will improve from this? Are we a city of families? Do we respond to this? Let’s not build that snail turned towards Kaunas, but let’s not raise the tax for parents,” said a member of the council.
On what basis are the fixed fees for kindergartens and food raised by 66 and 30 percent? asked council member Andrius Jučas.
“For meals, yes, inflation. But raising the fixed fee is completely questionable. We had 15, now – 25 Eur. It doesn’t matter if the child is sick or not. We are talking about punishing those who sign up in the summer and don’t marry. But let’s also punish those who sign up and don’t marry. Why do we punish everyone? This seems abnormal. And finally, the issue regarding the children of the district, whom we subsidize, must be resolved as soon as possible”, he said.
There were also comparisons that the fixed tax in Vilnius is EUR 20, and food prices are also somewhat lower than in Alytus.
Council member Nijolė Makštutienė said that the fixed fee should not be raised so drastically. “We discussed a lot, but raising it would be wrong. For food, yes. Expensive fuel, inflation, we will not avoid it. However, raising 60 percent – it’s terrible,” she said.
Head of the Education and Sports Department, Vytuolis, assured that the price increase was born from the meeting held among the managers of the institutions themselves, where it was proposed to raise the fixed fee up to 50 EUR. “So, we chose the middle one. We offer, and everything is up to you, dear politicians. After all, you can abolish that tax altogether and subsidize it. You are our elected government, so decide”, said V. Valūnas.
Still, 19 members of the council spoke in favor of the draft decision, higher prices for parents will be calculated from June 1.
Also, during the council meeting, the majority of the council set a fixed monthly fee of 25.0 EUR for student care and non-formal education in the extended day groups of general education schools of the municipality of Alytus. Until now, this fee amounted to 15 euros.
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Tags: difficult political decision fixed fee kindergarten parents raised percent
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