In a recent meeting at the Taoyuan City Council, Councilor Lin Zhengxian raised questions regarding the allocation of the city’s second reserve fund for disaster relief, Taoyuan’s fiscal deficit, and future infrastructure development.
On April 3rd of this year, Taiwan experienced a powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake, the strongest in nearly 25 years. Taoyuan was also affected to a certain extent. Lin Zhengxian urged the Taoyuan city government to utilize the second reserve fund for post-disaster relief efforts. Director Lin Shijie of the Finance Department mentioned that as of April this year, 13 cases had been approved, with a total amount of around 70 million NT dollars allocated from the second reserve fund. However, the fund has not been used due to the disaster reserve fund set up by the city government for the earthquake on April 3rd.
In the current fiscal year, Taoyuan’s total budget shows revenues of 143.2 billion NT dollars and expenditures of 156.8 billion NT dollars, resulting in a deficit of 13.6 billion NT dollars. Adding to this, there is also a need to repay debts amounting to 40 billion NT dollars, making a total funding requirement of 53.6 billion NT dollars. Additionally, the construction of the Taoyuan City Art Museum is short of 2.06 billion NT dollars. However, due to restrictions on splitting centrally allocated tax revenues and the inability to delay accounting to the third year, it is not feasible to allocate funds for subsequent years to cover the shortfall. Faced with a financial deficit of 53.6 billion NT dollars and a funding gap of 2.06 billion NT dollars for the Taoyuan City Art Museum project, Lin Zhengxian believes the city government should focus on increasing revenue, reducing expenses, and improving financial controls to reduce Taoyuan’s debt.
As of the end of March this year, Taoyuan City had approved 605 forward-looking infrastructure projects covering various areas such as railways, water environment, digital technology, urban and rural development, child-friendly spaces, food safety, and talent cultivation, with a total budget of 173.357 billion NT dollars. While there was a government subsidy of 83.844 billion NT dollars, there is still a shortfall of 89.513 billion NT dollars. Lin Zhengxian urged the city government to actively seek additional central government subsidies to address the current financial challenges.