The mayor, Juan José Cánovas, has reported that the Totana City Council is waiting for the Municipal Legal Services to make a report to know how it affects the Consistory and how much money could be made available for the 2020 budget, in relation to the agreement of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) that this week gave the green light to the proposal of the Ministry of Finance for the release of the remnants and the use of the surplus of the municipalitiesThat amount of money would go to help professional groups affected by this crisis and to revive the economy in the municipality, as announced by the mayor in the last plenary session.In fact, the possibility of convening an extraordinary plenary session in August to approve the municipal budget for the financial year 2020 in order to contemplate reactivation measures would be considered.The approved text offers municipalities a contribution from the General State Budgets of € 5 billion in lost funds (€ 2,000 for this year and € 3,000 for the next) provided they make their remnants available to the State, which will return them within a period 10 years from 2022. Thus, support mechanisms are established for municipalities with liquidity problems or financial risk, such as the case of Totana; and it is agreed not to require municipalities to comply with the spending rule in 2020 and the commitment to study its expansion by 2021. In addition, it is incorporated that local entities participate directly as beneficiaries of the recovery fund approved by the European Union and a working table is constituted for the future reform of local financing.The agreement has come after weeks of negotiation between the Treasury and the leadership of the FEMP to approve a document that allows municipalities to use the surplus and save the current legislation that generally prevents them from using their cash surpluses.The measures included in the agreement must be regulated in a norm with the rank of law, in which deadlines or procedures are established to speed up their application.
