The financial ‘canyon year’ for municipalities is getting closer. From next year they will receive a lot of money from the government to perform their duties. As a result, municipalities are forced to cut back on, for example, facilities on the one hand, but also to increase their income on the other. A difficult choice for municipalities, because residents will notice the consequences anyway.
A tour of Omroep Brabant among the municipalities of Brabant shows that almost all municipalities are currently preparing for the ‘canyon year’ 2026. Colleges draw up measures packages, one is further than the other. A part is still behind closed doors, other municipalities have already submitted the options to the city council. In a few municipalities it has even been decided what measures the city council wants to take.
What is the ‘canyon year’?
The mega measurement on the municipal fund is the outcome of an old plan. In the Rutte II cabinet, the then Minister of the Interior Ronald Plasterk came up with the idea of merging smaller municipalities. That would save money. Because the larger the municipality, the lower the costs. Nothing came of the large -scale merging of small municipalities, but the baking cutback of 2.4 billion remained stood annually. And so it starts by 2026.
The measures that prepare municipalities vary. For example, they consider increasing the property tax (OZB) and the tourist tax, postponing investments, using their reserve pots and cutting facilities and services.
Municipalities say they prefer to take measures that their residents notice as little as possible. At the same time, they also see that it will be very difficult. For example, things that the municipality is not obliged to do, such as making money for school swimming, culture, sports and facilities, are also put on the table.
Read also
“The realistic scenario is that we have to cut into non-legal tasks,” says the municipality of Roosendaal. “These include prevention, liveability, well -being and culture.” In Meierijstad there is currently a list of 132 austerity proposals ready. This contains, for example, proposals for a higher entrance to the swimming pool, less money for school buildings and to replace play equipment only when they are no longer safe.
In Gilze en Rijen, the city council decided in December how she wants to absorb the gap of more than one million euros in the budget. In addition to increasing the property tax and the tourist tax, the municipality will, among other things, to remove part of the care and support for citizens and check more on dog tax.
Not short of everywhere
Not in every municipality is threatening in the coming year. Thirteen municipalities still write black figures in their budget for 2026. On the map below you can see how many money municipalities will be left or fail in the coming year:
Waiting for privacy settings …
The fact that municipalities are not noticing a shortage does not mean that they still get enough money from the government. It is precisely these municipalities that have previously taken measures not to end up in the red figures. In Breda and Zundert, for example, it was already being cut and Gemert-Bakel, Nuenen and Tilburg kept money in hand to catch the shortage.
In Oosterhout they saw the dark clouds coming in 2024 and then they started a package of measures. But reducing subsidies, increasing taxes and postponing large investments have not been able to prevent the municipality from having one of the largest deficits in 2026. That shortage will increase even further in the coming years, just like in most other municipalities.
Permanent
Even after 2028, the furthest year that municipalities took this year in their budget, the local authorities are not yet out of trouble. “In that sense, Ravijn is a wrong chosen name,” says the municipality of Oosterhout. “That implies that you scribble there again on the other side.” As long as the government does not take measures, municipalities provide permanent consequences for their falling income. The fact that their expenditure on existing and new tasks in the meantime continues to rise hard, it makes it even more difficult for them.
“We see that our costs rise sharply and the income of the government at the same time falls sharply,” the municipality of Breda says. “People want to live and work somewhere. More and more young people appeal to youth care, the rates of which are also rising. That is untenable.”
It hurts that the government will continue the cut of nationally a total of 2.4 billion euros. The Association of Dutch Municipalities has been putting pressure on the national government for years to do something about the budget hole. “The conversations with the government do not yet yield anything,” the municipality of Breda sees. “Yes, there is understanding. But on understanding alone we do not build a comprehensive budget. The world is not standing still and challenges are coming to us.”
