The increase in funding will also make it possible to raise the amount of fully unrestricted grants that local councils can freely allocate to their priority needs from €18,000 to €30,000. These subsidies, awarded through the partnership funding scheme, make it easier to cover unexpected expenses with greater flexibility and have increased by 150% over the past two years. Town councils will be able to submit their applications until October 5.
“The Unified Subsidy Plan is the main financial support our towns receive, not only from the Zaragoza Provincial Council but from all public administrations,” recalls the institution’s president, Juan Antonio Sánchez Quero. He explains that “the excellent financial health we enjoy, together with the increase in revenue resulting from the strong growth of the Spanish economy, has enabled us to significantly expand the PLUS 2027 budget, giving town councils much more room to undertake new projects and initiatives.”
AID TO CLEAR WOODLAND AND PREVENT WILDFIRES
Among the new activities that local councils will be able to finance through PLUS 2027 are woodland-clearing operations. For the first time, the Unified Subsidy Plan’s grants will cover current expenditure related to forest-fire prevention and firefighting.
“This is a first step toward helping our towns fight fires and the climate emergency that we have suffered so dramatically this summer,” Sánchez Quero says.
The Zaragoza Provincial Council’s Unified Subsidy Plan was launched in 2017 and marked a change in the relationship between the provincial institution and Zaragoza’s 292 municipalities. The nearly 30 aid schemes that the DPZ issued each year were consolidated into a single plan, giving each town council the freedom to decide which projects and needs to allocate its funding to.
MORE AUTONOMY AND SUPPORT FOR SMALL MUNICIPALITIES
“PLUS completely changed the way subsidies are distributed, giving our towns much more autonomy and making the Provincial Council adapt to the guidelines set by town councils, rather than the other way around as happened previously,” Sánchez Quero stresses.
The DPZ president also highlights that mayors now have greater planning capacity because they know in advance how much money they will receive each year. He also points out that the funds are distributed “in a completely objective and transparent manner” based on each municipality’s population.
The allocation criteria are designed to give particular support to small and medium-sized municipalities. Thus, 40% of PLUS funds is distributed as a fixed amount equally among all town councils, while the remaining 60% is awarded according to the number of inhabitants.
