The problem with the state budget for 2025 is not in revenues, but in expenditures.
Therefore, we propose 4 very specific measures.
This was announced by "Yes, Bulgaria".
Phase-by-step release of civil servants of retirement age. People who have reached retirement age who continue to work in the state administration are thousands, especially in the Ministry of Interior system. They stop the career development of young people and must be laid off by the administration, ensuring them a dignified retirement.
They will receive their due salaries after retirement, but it will be deferred, for example, within 2 years. Specifically for the Ministry of Interior: Employees who have reached retirement age in the Ministry of Interior system are a large share. We accept that the salaries of the Ministry of Interior should be increased - something voted for by a large majority in the spring. But we believe that some adjustments are needed. For example, the salary should be tied to the average salary by region, instead of the average for the country, as well as taking into account the fact that civil servants, including in the Ministry of Interior, do not pay social security contributions.
Differentiation of the increases - they should be only for employees with police functions, while the administration remains under the general rules for salaries in the state administration. We also plan to release a large part of the pensioners in the Ministry of Interior by the end of the year, in order to free up the career growth of younger employees in the system. Within six months, the Minister of the Interior should assess the functions actually performed by the employees and, accordingly, those who do not need police powers should be reassigned under the Labor Code (or the Civil Servant Act).
We propose that for newly hired employees in the Ministry of the Interior, with increased salaries from January 2025, the number of salaries received upon termination of the legal relationship should be reduced (from 20 to 10), as well as that the payment of leave should be taken into account with the salary when accumulating leave, and not when it is paid. These proposals achieve fair optimization in the Ministry of the Interior, without denying the need for fair pay.
Phase-by-step introduction of social security contributions by civil servants.
Civil servants should start paying social security contributions – this is best done in stages, within 6 years (by 1/6 each year), until a ratio of 60:40 is reached. On an annual basis, the phased introduction of social security contributions will be less than the annual increases in salaries in the administration. Currently, employees in the private sector pay 40% of social security contributions, while in the public sector they are paid entirely by the state.
This leads to serious distortions in statistics, since net salaries in the public sector are actually even higher than in the private sector. In the long term, such a measure will stabilize the pension system, which will no longer rely on a 40% transfer from the state budget.
Optimization of state administration through focused e-government measures.
Optimization of administration, incl. by introducing shared services, centralized competitions, releasing those who do not meet basic criteria for performing civil service and reducing the total staff after a functional analysis - all measures that we started in 2022, but the efforts were terminated with the overthrow of the cabinet. Public procurement for private hospitals. Introducing an obligation for private hospitals to conduct public procurement for medicines when paid for by the health fund. Private hospitals must start conducting public procurement for medicines when public resources are used by the health fund.
This will reduce healthcare costs, because the situation is currently affecting the pockets of every citizen. According to data presented in journalistic investigations, the exclusion of private hospitals from the obligation to conduct public procurement for medicines is damaging the NHIF by over 100 million leva. per year, and the difference in prices for the same drugs, from the same manufacturer, can reach 14-15 or even 28 times between state and private medical institutions.
Private hospitals carried out public procurement until 2016, when this obligation for them was removed from the law at the suggestion of GERB. And in the fall of last year, despite the insistence of PP-DB, with the votes of GERB, DPS and Vazrazhdane, they rejected a bill to return the obligation to conduct public procurement. All this is happening not only against the backdrop of public losses for Bulgarian healthcare, but also under the threat of financial sanctions from the EU. Since 2019, the EC has been conducting punitive proceedings against Bulgaria because private ones do not conduct tenders.