The Kankaanpää City Council approved the city's 17 budget at its meeting on December 2018, 2019, and a sustainable financial program was defined as a task. The process of preparing the sustainable financial program was planned by the city's management team and presented to all city managers at a supervisor information session held in January. After this, the work continued under the leadership of the managers in the city's various units. All city employees were involved in the preparation of the sustainable financial program and ideas are encouraged to be presented openly. The proposals for measures received from within the organization were supplemented with feedback collected from the municipality.

The sustainable financial program was, as scheduled, under consideration by the Kankaanpää City Council at its June meeting. The council then decided to return the financial program for re-preparation and to engage an external consultant in the work. It was also decided to extend the work to the entire city group, meaning that the Basic Services Municipal Corporation PoSa was also subject to the audit.

The City Board selected Perlacon Oy to prepare the balancing program and a steering group for the investigation process, which included the chairmen of the City Board and the council, representatives appointed by the Green and Christian Democrats council groups, a representative of the Kankaanpää For the Benefit of group, and the office-holders, the mayor, the director of administration and human resources, and the director of finance. The steering group had a total of 19 people.

The preparation of the economic balancing program proceeded in such a way that the consultant was provided with detailed initial information on the activities, services, costs, customer numbers and volumes of all different sectors. The work was also supported by the preparation of the previous action program in the spring. In parallel with the city's balancing work, preparatory work was carried out at PoSa, led by the same consultant.

The Economic Balancing Program Steering Group met several times as the work progressed. The City Council also held a council seminar on 30 October 2019, where the need for economic balancing was discussed. In addition, the issue has been discussed extensively at events organised by different party groups. Staff representatives have also discussed the issue at meetings of the Cooperation Committee.

Perlacon Oy completed a presentation of possible financial balancing measures on November 15, 2019, after which the personnel representatives gave their own statement on the presentation. After this, the city steering group presented its final program. The city and PoSa steering groups have also discussed their programs together. After this, the measures have been included in the mayor's 2020 budget and 2021–2022 financial plan proposal, which the city government discussed on December 2, 2019. The city council finally decided on the program and related measures at its meeting on December 16, 2019.

The implementation of the balancing program is monitored in conjunction with the city's financial monitoring and planning.

Economic balancing program in a nutshell

  • The primary goal of the program is to lift Kankaanpää's economy out of the crisis municipality threat. If no measures were taken, Kankaanpää would be in the crisis municipality procedure in 2022, after having run a deficit for four consecutive years. In euro terms, the goal of the balancing program was to find savings of approximately five million euros.
  • The program consists of various cost-saving and operational efficiency measures throughout the entire city organization. The city's operations will be organized internally in a more efficient manner and the city's prices and tariffs will be reviewed across the board.
  • The balancing program includes measures intended to reduce person-years. The reductions are intended to be implemented by taking advantage of retirements and fixed-term contracts, and the city is not considering dismissals, part-time work or layoffs at this stage. However, the measures under the balancing program may result in changes to work organization, job descriptions and terms of employment.
  • On the city's education side, savings are being sought, for example, by standardizing school start times and by increasing the density of the daycare network in proportion to the decline in the number of children. The steering group did not decide to include the school network reform that was in the consultants' proposal in the program.
  • The largest single increase in revenue is the sale of the street lighting network to Vatajankosken Sähkö Oy. The city enters into a service agreement with Vatajankoski.
  • The balancing program also includes a 0,25 percentage point tax increase, which the city council decided on at its meeting on November 18.11.
  • In addition to the city's investigation, investigation work was also carried out at the basic services municipal joint venture PoSa. In this regard, savings of approximately 3,2 million euros can be found. Kankaanpää's share is approximately 70%.

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