Urban budget – sustainable and generational

Trade tax is the city's largest source of income. The economy thus contributes to our community and to the public infrastructure from which it also benefits. We strengthen trade tax revenue through a forward-looking location policy through inventory maintenance and resettlement, if possible without burdening companies by increasing the lifting rates.

In order for municipalities to meet their obligations, their financial envelopes need to be improved. Negotiations have not yet succeeded. We demand: Those who delegate tasks must also ensure funding. If the state or the federal government refuses, we are prepared to bring an action against the federal government and the federal state – together with other municipalities.

We want to expand funding management at departments and offices in order to achieve the highest possible public subsidies (by the state, the federal government and the EU) for urban projects and thus relieve the budget.

The Rhine-Main region is a strong economic region. We want to further strengthen cohesion and strengthen cooperation. By intensifying cooperation with neighbouring municipalities, synergies can be increased and costs reduced.

For the public, the budget and its development will be presented in a comprehensible way on the urban website. For reasons of transparency, the budget data should also be published in a timely manner via open data, i.e. as freely accessible and reusable data sets.

Local government procurement is a relevant lever in shaping local economic relations. We want to make the award of public contracts more medium-sized and innovation-friendly, so that local companies and start-ups are better served. In addition, we want systematic sustainability criteria such as life cycle costs, resource conservation and adherence to tariffs to be taken into account.

Investors are increasingly looking for ways to invest their money sustainably. They accept a lower return than conventional investments. In order to make this usable for sustainable projects, in particular for climate protection, the city is to examine the placement of a ‘green promissory note loan’ on the capital market.

Citizens are committed to our city in a variety of ways. We want to create opportunities for participation with which they can finance concrete projects such as photovoltaic systems on public buildings.

We do not simply want to continue with the budget estimates of the past into the new year, but to recalculate with each budget what is really needed. We want to resume and continue the pilot project on zero-base budgeting.

Public money needs to be handled carefully. This is served by a continuous review of which tasks are still needed or where changes are required.

Since the income and costs of the one-year budget are not in a positive relationship, we want to return to a two-year budget. The promised benefits of the one-year budget have not materialized, but the burden on administration and voluntary policy has increased enormously.

We have recast the Urban Investment Directive, not only strengthening safety requirements, but also defining sustainability as an investment goal. Investments by the state capital, its own businesses and legally dependent foundations of the city must therefore not only meet the economic goals of security, profitability and liquidity, but also ecological and social (minimum) standards.