Budget savings to be spent on wages, budget deficit

Of this amount, zł.1.85 billion will be designated for increasing the wages of teachers, while zł.1.5 billion will be spent lowering the budget deficit to zł.27.1 billion. The funds were obtained by lowering subsidies for the Social Insurance Fund (FUS), decreasing reserves and suppressing the expenditure of ministries and governmental institutions. Theatres will receive 64% fewer funds, philharmonics - 47% less, galleries - 77%, libraries - 28.6%, while the social construction sector will receive less than half the support previously planned, with zł.70 million replacing zł.180. Law and Justice (PiS) and Left and Democrats (LiD) announced that they will submit plenty of amendments to next year's budget and that this is a very poor bill. The finance minister and representatives of the ruling coalition also admit that the budget for 2008 is not perfect, but there is no time to further work on it. The voting on the proposed budget will be carried out on Friday. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. B1, B2) M.M.