Moldovan education minister says education system's employees to receive salaries in time

Chisinau, 19 November /MOLDPRES/ - Education and Research Minister Dan Perciun today came up with specifications on the situation emerged as regards the payment of salaries to the teachers and educators from the Chisinau city. The official gave assurances that the education system’s employees would receive the salaries in time. Perciun noted that there was money, but the resources should be redistributed from the chapters where there are savings for the payment of wages.   

„For instance, this year, the city hall planned expenses worth 384 million lei for energy and utilities and till November, it spent 220 million lei, with 164 million lei unspent, most of which can be used including for salaries. And the lack of actions in this respect represents an action undertaken with ill-will, wishing to artificially create a crisis in the Chisinau municipality,’’ Minister Dan Perciun said.       

According to the minister, most resources for education in the Chisinau city come from the state budget. This year, about 85 per cent of the budget for education of the Chisinau city hall will be allocated from the state budget and only 15 per cent will be provided by the city hall. Thus, Chisinau’s budget for education in 2024 presently amounts to 4.14 billion lei. The government will earmark 3.51 billion of this sum and the city hall committed to contribute 612 million lei.  

„Till 16 November, with one month left till the end of this year, the city hall spent only 80 per cent of this money: 85 per cent of the sums coming from the government and 57 per cent of its own resources. A months of spending represents, on average, about 8.3 per cent of the annual budget, so that a level of 80-85 per cent one month before the end of the year does not show major problems at the general level,’’ the minister said.

The Chisinau city hall this year planned 2.7 billion lei for the payment of salaries of the education system employees. As much as 93 per cent of this sum has been already spent and the Education Ministry says that a solution in this case is the reallocation of the funds unspent from the less used budgetary lines for salaries. ‘’As much as 338 million lei is available for articles of utilities, nourishment and other services alone one month before the end of the year. On average, in the last 11 months, the city hall spent 46 million lei monthly on these three articles – as compared to the sum of 338 million lei left for the last month. These resources are enough for the covering of the needs of salaries,’’ Dan Perciun stressed.     

The education minister noted that the subject on the payment of salaries to teachers had been discussed at a today’s meeting with representatives of the city hall, held at the Finance Ministry’s headquarters. ‘’I think that the discussion was pretty constructive and we have an agreement that, on 23 November, we meet again after the city hall assesses, from their viewpoint, what resources they can reallocate from other articles of spending to the payment of salaries to teachers from the overall budget allocated for education,’’ Dan Perciun also said.     

The subject is to be analyzed with representatives of trade unions and the headmasters of schools and kindergartens from the Chisinau city on 21 November.  

Under the legal provisions, the Chisinau city hall has autonomy in the distribution of the funds received from the state budget on diverse articles of spending. This means that the city hall decides how much it allocates from the governmental funds for salaries, energy and utilities, nourishment and repair.