7.8 million lei for the toilets of 97 schools that did not finish the works in 2025

The figure that tells the story is not in the decision, it comes out of a comparison. The ministry’s explanatory memorandum shows that in 2025, through Government Decision no. 351/2025, 14,589,000 lei were allocated on the same capital expenditure line. The present decision allocates 7,849,000 lei for works from that same list, not started or not finished by 31 December 2025. The ratio is 53.8%: at least half of last year’s money never reached the walls. The real percentage is probably higher, because the list kept only those institutions that also meet the 2026 funding conditions and that confirmed, through the inspectorate, that they would continue the works. An execution rate below 50% on jobs worth a few tens of thousands of lei each is a matter of the administrative capacity of small communes, not of the size of the amounts, and the decision does not touch this point at all.

The second observation concerns time and shows only once the dates are put end to end. The reference point for non-performance is 31 December 2025. The ministry asked the county school inspectorates to check the situation by letter no. 383/GP of 7 May 2026. The decision was adopted on 9 October 2026 and published on 12 October 2026, 158 days after that request and 285 days after the reference date. The recipient is left with 81 days until 31 December 2026, and into them must fit the local budget amendment, the public procurement procedure, the execution and the acceptance. The administration took nine and a half months to draw up a list, and asks the local authority for a construction job in two and a half months. It is this imbalance, not the amount, that decides whether the money will be spent.

The third element concerns the mechanism. Unused amounts go, under Article 2(3), to the state budget at the end of the year, while the transfer itself is made, under the mechanism described by the ministry, at the local authority’s request, on the basis of the acceptance and the invoice. Combined, the two rules produce a result neither of them states on its own: the local authority pays for the works first out of its own money, in a stretch of time in which local budget execution closes at the end of the year anyway, and if it does not manage, the money goes back and everything starts again in 2027 with a new decision. For 19 of the 68 local authorities, which have several entries to handle at once, the pressure is multiplied. One more thing should be said in the act’s favour: its arithmetic is impeccable. We checked twice the sum of the 97 entries and the sum of the 16 county totals, and both come to exactly the 7,849,000 lei in Article 1, with no duplicate entry and no gap in the numbering, which is anything but usual in a four-page annex set out by county.

One check did come out against the drafting. We opened the state budget law for 2026, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 242 of 27 March 2026, at Article 3, invoked in the preamble as the legal basis. The article has a single sentence and says that budget expenditure is set out in detail in the budgets of the principal authorising officers by source of financing, and within these by chapters, subchapters, paragraphs, titles, articles and expenditure items. It places the amount within the budget classification, but it gives the Government no power to allocate towards local budgets. That power comes from Article 144(1)(g) of Law no. 198/2023, also cited in the preamble, so the solution adopted by the act is untouched. The reference nevertheless remains a formal one, in the very place where a reader would look for the substantive basis. Also formal, but visible, is the name of the law: in the Romanian original the preamble writes „Legea bugetului de stat pentru anul 2026” instead of the official title, „Legea bugetului de stat pe anul 2026”. Both prepositions come out as „for” in English, so the slip is visible only in Romanian.

What should be changed

1. A reporting obligation on 31 January 2027, entry by entry from the annex. The county school inspectorates already know what was transferred and against which documents. A public table reading „completed, in progress, not started” would show whether the programme works, something that today cannot be learned from any act.
2. The allocation should be published in the first quarter, not in October. The data existed from 7 May 2026. A decision published in March or April would give the local authority a whole building season instead of 81 days that take in the start of winter as well.
3. An advance of 30% of the amount on signature of the works contract. Payment strictly against acceptance turns state budget funding into credit granted by the recipient commune, and the communes with small budgets are precisely the ones that appear in the annex.
4. Multiannual status for works in continuation. Article 144(1)(g) of Law no. 198/2023 expressly allows multiannual programmes. Using that option would end the cycle in which the same job calls for a new decision every year and stops on 31 December.
5. Making the amount conditional on confirmation that the difference is covered from the local budget. At entries of 6,000 lei or 11,000 lei, without a local council decision showing the rest of the financing, the allocation risks being a transfer that goes back untouched to the state budget.
6. The 51,000 lei left unallocated should be allocated, not left on the line. The budget law provided 7,900,000 lei on this item and the decision distributes 7,849,000 lei. The difference fully covers two of the smallest entries in the annex and has no reason to stay unused.