Bud­get defi­cit in Lon­gye­ar­by­en

That is defi­ni­te­ly some­thing Lon­gye­ar­by­en shares with many other muni­ci­pa­li­ties in Nor­way and else­whe­re: public bud­gets are under stress, cos­ts are on the rise ever­y­whe­re and inco­me does not always meet expec­ta­ti­ons. In Lon­gye­ar­by­en, for exam­p­le, the com­mu­nal art gal­lery Nord­o­ver did and does not yield the eco­no­mic result that had been hoped for. In the past, the gal­lery used to be in Nyby­en (the upper part of Lon­gye­ar­by­en). Now it resi­des in the same buil­ding as the super­mar­ket Sval­bard­bu­tik­ken, with a rather incon­spi­cuous ent­rance on the building’s nor­t­hern side that many tou­rists appar­ent­ly don’t see (or don’t care much about). When the gal­lery was in Nyby­en, it used to be a popu­lar stop on gui­ded bus tours for crui­se­ship tou­rists.

Clo­sing Sval­bard­hal­len (swim­ming & sports hall) for a lon­ger peri­od last sum­mer becau­se of legio­nella-loa­ded water didn’t help eit­her. As a result, a defi­cit of one mil­li­on kro­ner is expec­ted for the sec­tor lei­su­re and cul­tu­re in 2024 – the lar­gest sin­gle defi­cit in Longyearbyen’s public spen­dings this year. The total defi­cit amounts to 5.3 mil­li­on kro­ner (ca. 440,000 Euro) in 2024.

Lon­gye­ar­by­en in Octo­ber 2024: no snow, no money (the lat­ter is not quite true).

Part of the defi­cit can be accoun­ted for by means of inter­nal res­truc­tu­ring. The hig­hest sum is to be paid by the youn­gest mem­bers of the muni­ci­pa­li­ty: the bud­get of the com­mu­nal kin­der­gar­tens is now cut by 500,000 kro­ner. On the other side, the muni­ci­pa­li­ty of Lon­gye­ar­by­en still has a total of 70 mil­li­on kro­ner sit­ting in various bank accounts, as Sval­bard­pos­ten reports.

As a result, Lon­gye­ar­by­en is still much bet­ter off than many muni­ci­pa­li­ties in main­land Nor­way: for exam­p­le, Sen­ja (near 15,000 inha­bi­tants) south of Trom­sø has to deal with a defi­cit of 50 mil­li­on kro­ner in 2024, Trom­sø its­elf even lacks 259 mil­li­on kro­ner in last year’s bud­get, accor­ding to NRK. Until now, the finan­ces of 2023 Nor­we­gi­an muni­ci­pa­li­ties are under sta­te super­vi­si­on.

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