Communities near the front lines are requesting an additional 75 billion hryvnia in the 2027 state budget

The Association of Frontline Cities and Communities has prepared a package of proposals for the 2027 state budget draft totaling 75 billion hryvnia. The main initiatives include additional funding for frontline territories, retaining 64% of personal income tax in their budgets, abolishing the reverse subsidy, and increasing spending on education, healthcare, and shelter. 

The document was presented by the association’s chairman, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov, during a board meeting attended by community leaders and members of parliament.

According to the association, the need for additional funding in frontline cities amounts to nearly 67 billion hryvnias. In addition, 34 communities have submitted 51 public investment projects totaling approximately 8.4 billion hryvnias in the areas of water supply, energy, healthcare, shelter construction, housing, and municipal infrastructure.

The main proposals from frontline communities include:

* retaining 64% of personal income tax in local budgets, with an additional 4% allocated to municipal infrastructure, transportation, emergency repairs, and social facilities;
* abolishing the application of reverse subsidies to frontline territories;
* ensuring funding to compensate for the difference in utility rates, for which the draft budget allocates 18.2 billion UAH;
* increasing spending on shelters in educational institutions, public investments in healthcare, social support for families with children and people with disabilities, and the management of debris from destruction;
* setting the minimum wage at a level of at least 10,000 UAH instead of the 9,546 UAH proposed by the government, and the minimum pension at 6,000 UAH;
* increasing the education subsidy by at least 25 billion UAH to gradually raise the minimum wage for teachers to two to three times the subsistence minimum over the course of 2–3 years.

Separately, the Association of Frontline Cities and Communities, together with members of parliament, is finalizing a draft law on additional social guarantees and special conditions for calculating pensionable service for people who continue to live and work in frontline territories.

Source: Association of Frontline Cities and Communities.