ZAGREB, 27 Oct 2021 - Zagreb schools are in serious financial problems because the city has been late for months with the payments it owes them as their founder, Jutarnji List daily said on Wednesday.
Due to the budget deficit encountered upon coming to power, the new city administration is evidently at quite a tight stop, and schools are affected, the paper said.
Headmasters have confirmed that the last payment they received from the city for energy was in August to pay the bills for March, for food in September to pay the bills for April, and only this week to cover the material costs of the last month of the previous school year.
Due to the months-long lateness in the payments, school headmasters fear shut-offs and enforcement procedures. For now, they are using school funds to pay the bills, they say, adding that payments were late in the past as well, but never this late.
"We don't have money even for emergencies... We understand that the city is in a difficult financial situation, but we have a hard time understanding that there is no information on when we will get the money," Suzana Hitrec, president of the Secondary School Headmasters Association, was quoted as saying.
She said secondary school headmasters had met with city officials but were not informed when the payments would become regular.
If some schools have money in their accounts, those are mainly funds for European projects which cannot be used to pay for toilet or printing paper, Hitrec said.
According to estimates, the city should give schools about HRK 10 million a month to pay utility bills as well as for material costs and food, Jutarnji List said.
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