To run a municipality

In the past few weeks, local government representatives from all over the country have come together to discuss the management and issues of municipalities.
At the end of September, the National Conference of the Association of Icelandic Municipalities was held, and in October there was a financial conference.
It is very useful for people involved in managing these important infrastructures across the country to meet and compare notes. Both elected representatives and town and municipal managers. The challenges are significant, but this is best seen by the fact that the number of municipalities not meeting the minimum criteria of the financial supervisory committee has doubled now following the pandemic. Fortunately, Mosfellsbær is not part of that group.
Part of the explanation for these operational difficulties is the transfer of the responsibility for disabled people to municipalities about 10 years ago. Since then, the service has developed in accordance with changes in the law, been modernised, and the cost has increased significantly without a corresponding increase in contribution from the state. Changes in the service also explain increased costs in other sectors. Preschool issues can be mentioned here. The cost of preschools to municipalities is about 60 billion ISK nationwide.
In recent decades, municipalities have built preschools that meet modern requirements where the length of stay has been extended both in terms of children's age and also in terms of the length of stay. It is now an exception if children are not in preschool by the age of two, and that they stay there for at least eight hours a day. Part of the explanation for the difficult operations of municipalities is also a significant population increase and the investment need that follows. For example, the population in the capital area has increased by over 30,000 in the last 10 years.

With these writings, I am not suggesting any magic solution for the operation of municipalities. Unfortunately. Rather, I am sharing the information available and the reflections related to them. I find it important that those who undertake decision-making about the operation of our shared funds inform on how things are going and why it is not possible to do everything for everyone immediately.
However, I am optimistic that we will continue to do well here in Mosfellsbær in the challenging task of dealing with a significant population increase while modernising and improving the services.
This means that we need to be sensible and prioritise in accordance with the investment capability at any given time. It also means we need to emphasise strategic planning so that we know where we are heading and through dialogue figure out how to get there.

Aldís Stefánsdóttir, municipal councillor for Framsókn in Mosfellsbær.

The article was first published on mosfellingur.is on 27 October 2022.