Chairperson of Save Romania Union (USR) Dominic Fritz said Tuesday that he favors reducing personnel costs in local public administration rather than cutting the number of positions.

„We propose to focus effectively on real personnel costs and on reducing these costs, rather than on reducing positions, by cutting some maximum salary grids from 2010, which in themselves have certain problems and inequities. There are many ways to bypass this maximum position grid. Some institutions are exempt,” he explained to RFI.

According to Fritz, administrative-territorial units could hire personnel at the level of communal associations so as to avoid staff reductions. These employees would not appear in the official staff lists of the commune town halls.

„I know administrative-territorial units that have half of their employees on the official organigram, visible, and an equal number through the commune association. (…) We believe that we should not focus so much on this maximum position grid, but rather look at where personnel costs are actually reduced. This also has the advantage of giving the mayor flexibility to decide where to make these reductions and by what means,” Dominic Fritz added.

The USR leader expressed his belief that the savings targeted by Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan through a 10% reduction of local administration employees could also be achieved through a „more flexible but also more reliable” mechanism.

Fritz also emphasized that the reform of local administration should be followed by reform at the central administration level, where there are „many more unnecessary positions.”

Dominic Fritz advocated for an administrative reform, noting, however, that it could only take effect in 2028.

„When we talk about local administration, clearly we cannot talk only about positions and that’s it; we also need to talk about administrative structure. We cannot have town halls that cannot cover their personnel costs from their own resources, we cannot have town halls for a few hundred residents – with a mayor, a deputy mayor, a general secretary, and the entire administrative structure. But it is clear that such an administrative reform cannot be implemented immediately; it may come into effect only in 2028,” the USR president concluded.

AGERPRES