The cabinet secretary today notified ministers that the cabinet meeting for approving the 2015 state budget would be held "next Monday or Tuesday," after the legislative initiatives included in the budget and Economics Arrangements bill are presented to the ministerial legislative committee and the socioeconomic cabinet on Sunday.
Channel 10 today revealed more of the budget cuts in the Economic Arrangements bill: a five-year postponement in the introduction of a long school day, raising fees for afternoon educational activities by tens of shekels a month, limiting of unemployment compensation for those under 30 to those unemployed for at least two years, price rises of up to NIS 100 for a passport, a reduction in construction grants in Judea and Samaria, a two-year halt in state financing for synagogues and mikvaot (ritual baths), higher taxes on foreign athletes playing for Israeli sports clubs, a NIS 16 million cut in the Ministry of Housing's budget, and a cut of tens of millions of shekels in state financing for fortifying buildings against earthquakes.
The cabinet secretary's announcement was published after the Ministry of Finance finally announced that it had finished preparing the state budget proposal. According to the procedure used in recent years, the cabinet meeting for approving the budget cannot be held for seven days after the budget proposal is distributed to the ministers, in order to enable them to study the material adequately before voting. The Finance Ministry is seeking to break with this procedure by advancing the cabinet meeting to Monday, fearing that approval of the budget will be dragged out into the Sukkot holiday, which begins on Wednesday night. The decision whether to accept the ministry's request will be taken only after obtaining the views of Assistant Attorney General Avi Licht, who has been working on the matter for several days.
The 2015 state budget proposal is being published almost two weeks later than originally planned, due to delays in achieving agreement between the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister on the size of the defense budget and the deficit target. They eventually agreed before Rosh Hashanah on a NIS 6 billion defense budget supplement and raising the deficit target to 3.4% of GDP. At a press conference called by the Finance Minister at the beginning of the week, senior Finance Ministry officials had to admit that the numbers "had not been finalized."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 1, 2014
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