<\/p>\n
The report\u00a0compares four different kinds of localities: The Forum of 15 (relatively\u00a0affluent localities with balanced budgets), Jewish development towns, Arab\u00a0localities, and Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories and in the\u00a0Golan Heights (for short, “the settlements”). The report also\u00a0differentiates between the three Haredi settlements \u2013 Betar Ilit, Modiin and\u00a0Emanuel \u2013 and the other Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories.<\/p>\n
Over the last\u00a0two decades, the population of Israel has grown by sixty percent. The greatest rate\u00a0of growth \u2013 240 percent, was registered in the settlements, where most of\u00a0growth actually took place in the three Haredi settlements, whose growth rate\u00a0amounted to 376 percent, while the rest of the settlements grew by 80 percent \u2013\u00a0closer to the overall average.<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0Central Government Subsidies of Municipal Budgets:<\/strong><\/p>\n The central government contributes to municipal\u00a0budgets in two different ways. One is through Service Grants for state services\u00a0provided by municipalities, the two main services being education and social\u00a0welfare services; and the second is for Balance Grants.<\/p>\n A.Service Grants<\/span>: Between\u00a01991 and 2012, the highest service grants, per capita, were registered in the\u00a0settlements. In 2012 the amount was NIS 2,695 per capita, on average, in\u00a0comparison with NIS 2,277 in Arab localities, NIS 1,892 in Jewish development\u00a0towns and NIS 1,684 in “”Forum of 15” localities.\u00a0Disaggregation of the Haredi and non-Haredi\u00a0settlements revealed that the non-Haredi settlements received per capita service\u00a0grants that were 2.4 times greater than those received by the Haredi settlements:\u00a0NIS 3,213, compared with NIS 1,359 per capita. The main reason for the\u00a0difference is the fact that in Haredi settlements, the service grants of the\u00a0central government, a good part of which is for education services, are not\u00a0transferred to the municipality but rather sent directly to two large Haredi\u00a0school networks, the “Independent” network belonging to the Agudat\u00a0Yisrael political party and the “Maayan HaTorah Education” network\u00a0belonging to the Shas party. Another reason: Haredi schools that do not belong\u00a0to either of the two networks are classified as “Recognized Education that\u00a0is not Official,” and as such are entitled to lower subsidies \u2013 of between\u00a055% and 75% of the regular subsidy \u2013 which decreases the size of the dedicated transfer.<\/p>\n B. Balance grants<\/span> are made to decrease the\u00a0accumulated deficit of low-income local authorities. Local authorities belonging\u00a0to the “Forum of 15” do not receive such grants. During the second\u00a0intifadah (2001-2003) central government balance grants were slashed, to the\u00a0disadvantage of Arab localities, Jewish development towns and settlements. For\u00a0example, during the 1990s, balance grants to Arab localities increased by some\u00a0100 percent, from NIS 746 per capita in 1991 to NIS 1,464 per capita in\u00a02001.The budget cut hit them very hard: in 2012 the average balance grant for\u00a0Arab localities was NIS 886 per capita, only 20 percent higher than in 1991.\u00a0Balance grants to Jewish development towns decreased\u00a0even before the large cuts that followed the second intifadah, but the trend of\u00a0decreasing subsidies grew even stronger after the intifadah period, and in 2012,\u00a0the average balance grant for Jewish development towns was NIS 671 per capita.\u00a0Throughout the period under study, the settlements\u00a0received the highest average balance grants per capita. The budget cuts of\u00a02001-2003 affected the Haredi settlements more than the non-Haredi ones: in\u00a02012, the average per capita balance grant in the non-Haredi settlements as NIS\u00a01,108 \u2013 about 50% more than that of the Haredi settlements \u2013 NIS 720.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0Local Financing<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition to examining\u00a0central government transfers to local authorities, we also examined local income\u00a0(obtained mainly from local taxes and fees) of the local authorities, per\u00a0capital.\u00a0When it comes to local income,\u00a0the situation of the “Forum of 15” localities is the best, with a per\u00a0capita local income (2012) of NIS 5,401. It\u00a0is due this high level of income\u00a0that they have no need for central government balance grants. Jewish\u00a0development towns have the second highest level of local income, with an\u00a0average of NIS 3,626 per capita, far behind “Forum of 15” localities.\u00a0At the bottom of the list are the Arab localities, with an average local income\u00a0per capita of NIS 1,406.\u00a0As for the settlements, they\u00a0have an average per capita local income of NIS 2,690. The local income of\u00a0non-Haredi settlements is about twice as high as that of the Haredi settlements\u00a0\u2013 NIS 3,049 compared with NIS 1,464.\u00a0Throughout the period of study,\u00a0the local income per capita of the Haredi settlements was similar to that of\u00a0the Arab localities. In both cases we are talking about localities lacking\u00a0independent infrastructure and therefore no tax base and whose residents are\u00a0characterized by the highest poverty levels in Israel: above 50 percent.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0The Expenditures of Local Authorities<\/strong><\/p>\n Along with income, we also\u00a0examined expenditures.\u00a0The lowest level of\u00a0expenditure was registered in Arab localities: in 2012, they expended an\u00a0average of NIS 4,688 per capita, compared to NIS 6,400 and higher for the other\u00a0groups of localities.\u00a0The average per capita\u00a0outlay in 2012 of the settlements was NIS 6,431. Disaggregation of Haredi and\u00a0non-Haredi settlements reveals that the average per capita outlay in the Haredi\u00a0settlements was NIS 3,596, lower than that of the Arab localities, while the\u00a0average per capita outlay of the non-Haredi settlements was twice as high \u2013 NIS\u00a07,416 \u2013 and was even higher than that of “Forum of 15” localities.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In this bi-annual report on inequality in central government transfers to local authorities the figures are for 2012, the most recent year for which the Ministry of the Interior and the Central Bureau of Statistics published complete data. We also examined the figures for the years between 1991 and 2012. Inequality was measured per capita.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[293,294,10],"tags":[224,811,827,261,110,157],"class_list":["post-1816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-municipalinequality","category-local-authorities","category-budget-and-economy","tag-settlements","tag-price-of-occupation","tag-government-subsidies-of-municipal-budgets","tag-local-authorities","tag-state-budget","tag-municipal-budget","author-142","author-105","post-type-research","category-293","category-294","category-10"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n