Former Province of Palermo, the Court of Auditors: “treasury” and balanced budgets but struggling credits

The accounts of the Metropolitan City are essentially in order, as the Court of Auditors confirms, scrutinizing the last six years of budgets. The cash at the end of the year has increased, rising from almost 150 million in 2018 to just under 280 million in 2024. And with liquidity, the administrative surplus has also grown, reaching 213 million and 848 thousand euros in 2024 (with a peak in 2023 of over 225 million), more than doubling compared to 2018 when it was 102 million and 813 thousand.

Increases are the result of various factors, including the entity's ability to improve collections. Excellent performance in collecting tax revenues, between 2022 and 2024 it has secured 99.34 percent of the amounts assessed. A bit less effective in recovering assessed credits recorded in the budget as active residues: in this case, collection stops at 63 percent. The entity's ability to collect non-tax revenues is different: on those within its competence, the Metropolitan City manages to reach 65.9 percent, while on past revenues it stops at 3.06 percent, indicating a substantial inefficiency in recovering such credits, write the accounting judges. Tax revenue assessments are increasing (rising from 65 million and 840 thousand euros to 76 million and 594 thousand euros), but assessments of non-tax revenues are decreasing, falling from 10 million and 978 thousand to 3 million and 848 thousand. The active residues of uncertain collection include those resulting from judgments of the same Court of Auditors, over 35 million. From the control section, other notes emerge. In addition to the poor collection capacity of non-tax revenues, the accounting magistrates make a couple of notes regarding the delayed approval of the accounts for 2022, 2023, and 2024 and the method used to account for the depreciation of credits (divided into two funds that the Court of Auditors does not approve).

The accounting magistrates then focused on the participations: the entity has recorded in the budget a loss fund that the Court does not agree with because public shareholders cannot, by law, cover the losses of companies. However, the losses are contained: in 2024 only Palermo Energia recorded a deficit of 473,293 euros and the Fondazione Sant’Elia just over a thousand euros. In the three previous years, Ecologia e Ambiente (a company in liquidation that ceased operations in 2019) recorded losses, the highest being almost 454 thousand euros in 2022. On the other hand, there are profits, such as those of Gesap, which increased from 7 million and 606 thousand in 2021 to 13 million and 650 thousand in 2024.

Good practices in construction: over one million and 400 thousand euros have been “saved” from works at the Vittorio Emanuele II high school and on provincial roads, funds that will be reinvested. There is also a risk that the entity may have to reimburse the provincial surcharge on electricity that two rulings from the Supreme Court have declared in conflict with EU regulations: the Metropolitan City has set aside over 6 million euros although to date no request has been made.