Gyeonggi Province Proposes W42 Tril. Supplementary Budget, Cuts W550 Bil. in Expenditures

Gyeonggi Province has formulated a 546.5 billion won intensive expenditure restructuring plan as part of its "second supplementary budget bill for 2026" to overcome fiscal emergency conditions.

Jeong Doo-seok, head of the Planning and Coordination Office at Gyeonggi Province, held a press conference at the provincial government briefing room today and announced a supplementary budget totaling 42.242 trillion won.

Although this represents an increase of 562.1 billion won compared to the first supplementary budget, it is actually a "reduction supplementary budget," as the increase solely reflects rising state subsidies and non-tax revenues.

On the revenue side, local tax revenues such as acquisition taxes were reduced by 300 billion won. On the expenditure side, essential livelihood projects worth 240 billion won—which had not been budgeted in the first supplementary budget—were newly reflected while other project expenses were drastically scaled back.

Specifically, event-based, one-time, overlapping, and duplicate projects were adjusted, and project scales and implementation schedules were reviewed, resulting in budget reductions for approximately 1,300 projects.

Major budget-cut projects and their scales include 23.48 billion won in unallocated deposits entrusted to the Election Commission, 19 billion won in compensation costs for the Bugok national local road construction, and 16.35 billion won in contributions to the Gyeonggi Credit Guarantee Foundation, with a total of 25 projects facing cuts of 5 billion won or more.

In addition, administrative operating expenses such as office management costs were cut by 22.2 billion won, and work-related expenses for senior officials of Grade 3 or higher were slashed by 400 million won.

The Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly also self-imposed cuts, including 1.4 billion won in overseas travel expenses for provincial assembly members and the assembly secretariat, and 900 million won in personnel expenses.

Regarding the fact that this round of cuts is about 220 billion won less than the 770 billion won expenditure restructuring scale previously announced by the province, a provincial official explained, "This is because the payments for certain items, such as the regional balanced development fund (140 billion won) and transfers to educational funds (100 billion won), were postponed until 2028, excluding the two projects from this supplementary budget reduction."

Gyeonggi Province allocated the financial resources secured through expenditure restructuring to livelihood projects.

Major livelihood budgets include ▲ 123.4 billion won for senior long-term care facilities and in-home benefits, ▲ 58.4 billion won to support meal costs for kindergartens, elementary, middle, and high schools under the Provincial Office of Education, ▲ 21.5 billion won for Gyeonggi farmer opportunity income support, ▲ 16.3 billion won for Gyeonggi youth basic income, ▲ 7.5 billion won for meal support for children at risk of skipping meals, ▲ 3.5 billion won for school meal support using eco-friendly and other premium agricultural and livestock products, and ▲ 3.7 billion won to support the operation of mobility support centers.

A total of 86.3 billion won was allocated to respond to the low birth rate crisis and essential welfare and medical projects.

Related project budgets reflect ▲ 22.3 billion won for fertility treatment cost support for infertile couples, ▲ 11.5 billion won for health management support for mothers and newborns, ▲ 6.0 billion won for transportation cost support for children and teenagers, and ▲ 3.0 billion won for disability activity support benefits.

Furthermore, a total of 29.8 billion won was reflected for urgent railway and road SOC projects, including ▲ 4.2 billion won for the Dobongsan-Okjeong metropolitan railway, ▲ 4.1 billion won for the road expansion and paving project in Gongdo-mup, Anseong, and ▲ 3.0 billion won for the road expansion and paving project in Ujeong-eup and Hyangnam-eup, Hwaseong.

Jeong Doo-seok, head of the Planning and Coordination Office at Gyeonggi Province, said, "Amid difficult provincial fiscal conditions, we pursued comprehensive expenditure restructuring to safeguard essential livelihood projects directly linked to the lives of provincial residents." He added, "However, focusing on the principle that we must protect people's livelihoods and safety, we concentrated on drawing up a livelihood-focused supplementary budget to secure livelihood budgets rather than simply cutting expenditures."

(Photo provided by Gyeonggi Province, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.