Members of the Budget Committee propose to redistribute budget limits to ensure salaries for cultural and education workers

Screenshot of the budget committee meeting

In Mykolaiv, members of the city council's budget committee recommended adjusting budget limits to cover the shortfall in funds for paying salaries to workers in the culture and education sectors.

The issue was discussed during the committee meeting on Friday, 13 February, according to NikVesti.

Yurii Liubarov, head of the culture department of the Mykolaiv City Council, said that the sector currently lacks more than 5 million hryvnias to pay salaries. According to him, the problem can be temporarily solved by redistributing budget limits from the months of the second half of the year.

«When forming the budget request, we included a request for 184 million 278 thousand hryvnias. As a result of the adoption of the budgets, we received 137 million 731 thousand hryvnias, which is 46 million less than in the budget request. This has resulted in a shortage of funds for salaries and accruals this year, and taking into account the complex limits that are calculated on a monthly basis, we have a shortage of 5 million 1 thousand hryvnias for salaries across the entire cultural sector in February,» said Yurii Liubarov.

A similar situation has arisen in the education department. Budget limits were set without taking into account the government's decision to increase salaries.

The commission members concluded that the only temporary solution at this point is to redistribute budget limits until the city receives additional support from the state budget. The head of the commission, Fedir Panchenko, proposed to request a detailed monthly breakdown of funding for all administrators and to recommend that the mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych, and the finance department adjust it to ensure the timely payment of salaries guaranteed by law in February and March.

«Regarding administrators — the Department of Culture and the Department of Education. Recommend that the mayor, the Department of Finance, and administrators review the monthly limits to ensure the payment of the minimum wages established by law in accordance with current legislation for February and March,» suggested Fedir Panchenko.

The members of the commission supported the proposal.

We remind you that due to a lack of funds in the Mykolaiv budget, cultural institutions will receive about 40% of their salaries for February and March.

As is known, last week the director of Mykolaiv Children's Music School №5, Larysa Stoliarova, announced that the institution was cutting teaching hours and bonuses for teachers. In addition, she appealed to the city leadership, deputies and international funds not to allow Mykolaiv's arts education to «die quietly».

Furthermore, the Mykolaiv budget does not have the funds to increase teachers' salaries, as initiated by the state.

As is known, the Cabinet of Ministers has decided to increase the salaries of teaching staff by 30% from January 2026 and by a further 20% from September.

Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych says that there are no funds in the city budget to increase salaries, as the city is generally short of 1.5 billion hryvnias this year. The mayor believes that it is only possible to increase teachers' salaries with support from the state budget.

At the end of 2025, Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych stated that the problem of low salaries in the city council is acute. The difference between the salaries of local government officials and civil servants is 50-100%, he said. Therefore, the mayor explained, salaries for officials can only be increased with financial assistance from the state budget.

As for the new budget for 2026, according to Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych, it is essentially a survival budget and does not cover all the needs of the community.

In total, the budget revenues for 2026 amount to 5 billion 546 million hryvnias, while the total budget expenditures amount to 5 billion 275 million 353 thousand 815 hryvnias.

To meet the city's needs, at the session on 30 December, deputies appealed to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with a request to provide an additional subsidy from the state budget.

The deputies also appealed to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Cabinet of Ministers with a request to increase the salaries of cultural workers. The document refers to the critically low level of wages in the cultural sector.

According to the city's calculations, its own budget revenues for 2026 are only sufficient to cover 82.5% of actual needs, and the financial resource deficit exceeds 1 billion 140 million hryvnias.