Riga, Dec 12 (LETA) - The Riga Neighborhood Alliance calls on the Riga City Council to maintain the participatory budgeting at the previously planned level without reducing it.

In a letter to the councilors, the alliance reminded them that according to the new Local Government Law, from next year every Latvian municipality must introduce a participatory budget and each municipality must allocate at least 0.5 percent of its average personal income tax and property tax revenues calculated for the last three years to it in its budget.

However, on the proposal of the Saeima Speaker, Daiga Mierina (Greens/Farmers), the Saeima decided to allow local governments to allocate less money to the participatory budget until 2029 when examining the draft state budget for the next year.

The Riga Neighborhood Alliance argues that these sudden and significant amendments were made without broad public participation and even without any explanations.

The organization calls on the Riga City Council to support the 0.5 percent of the participatory budget funding that has been planned so far, which has already been earmarked for the participatory budget idea contest in the 2025 municipal budget.

The alliance pointed out that the participation and involvement of citizens in the improvement of their environment and neighborhood and in decision-making is very important, educational and developable. It is important that citizens have demonstrable opportunities to directly influence and contribute to the implementation of needs that are important to them in their municipality, thus building a positive and collaborative relationship with the municipality.

"Saving budgets at the expense of citizen participation would be very demotivating for citizens. It would show the insignificance of participatory budgeting as such and of citizen participation in the eyes of politicians," the alliance said in its letter.

"The Riga municipal authorities implementing the participatory budget projects have also repeatedly stated that it would be easier to implement the projects if they were larger, as less of the already limited administrative and project management resources would be spent on managing many small projects," the residents' representatives wrote in their letter.

As reported, Mierina's proposal in the draft state budget for 2025 foresees that the municipality would be entitled to allocate financial resources to the participation budget in a smaller amount, while observing that the funding for the participation budget in the annual municipal budget is allocated gradually and in 2025 and 2026 is set at a minimum of 0.1 percent of the municipality's average one-year actual revenues from personal income tax and property tax calculated for the last three years, and in 2027 and 2028 - at a minimum of 0.2 percent.