Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly Passes Revised Supplementary Budget Restoring 21.6 Billion Won for Livelihood Funds

▲ Gyeonggi Provincial Government and Provincial Assembly

The Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly held a special plenary session on October 12 and approved a revised proposal for the second supplementary budget, totaling 42.2054 trillion won, which restores 21.6 billion won in livelihood project budgets.

The restored budget includes 3.4 billion won for the "Gyeonggi Revitalization Tong-keun Sale," 3.6 billion won for postpartum care subsidies, 2.4 billion won for the transportation vulnerable mobility support center, 2.7 billion won for daycare center childcare, 1.9 billion won for female youth sanitary products, 1.9 billion won for regular automated enforcement camera inspections, 1 billion won for taxi card payment commissions, and 1.5 billion won for children's healthy fruit supplies.

Gyeonggi Province secured the funding by cutting reserve funds, thereby securing most of the insufficient budgets for livelihood projects that were initially reflected for only nine months in the main budget.

Attending the provincial assembly, Gyeonggi Governor Choo Mi-ae stated, "I agree with the revised proposal," while explaining, "Next year's fiscal conditions are expected to be very severe due to a shortage of available financial resources."

Previously, Gyeonggi Province drew up a second supplementary budget proposal amounting to 42.242 trillion won, reflecting 546.5 billion won in expenditure restructuring to overcome the fiscal crisis, and submitted it to the extraordinary session of the provincial assembly held last month (September 1–18).

The provincial assembly repeatedly proposed revisions, claiming the scale of expenditure adjustment was too large, but the province maintained its stance that it could not accept anything other than 8.9 billion won for items such as postpartum care subsidies, failing to find a compromise.

Consequently, the Democratic Party of Korea, the majority party in the provincial assembly, declared the breakdown of negotiations on October 8 and announced it would hold a one-point extraordinary plenary session on this day to restore livelihood budgets totaling 42.9 billion won across some 50 projects.

The 42.9 billion won was the amount agreed upon by Democratic Party and People Power Party members of the Special Committee on Budget and Accounts subcommittee.

However, the Democratic Party engaged in last-minute negotiations with the provincial executive branch on this day and finally agreed to reduce the scale of the budget restoration to 21.6 billion won.

The People Power Party immediately protested.

Prior to the vote on the supplementary budget, People Power Party floor leader Bang Sung-hwan stated through a procedural remark, "This supplementary budget proposal restoring 21.6 billion won did not go through an agreement between the two parties," adding, "The responsibility for the budget paralysis lies with the Choo Mi-ae administration, and we will fight to the end alongside the victims and provincial residents whose budgets were cut."

(Photo provided by Gyeonggi Province, Yonhap News)

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