The state wants to separately finance social guarantees for those who ensure the livelihood of communities under shelling

A bill No. 15341 "On Amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine Regarding Financial Support of Guarantees for Participants Ensuring the Livelihood of the Population, Functioning of the State, and Critical Infrastructure in Areas of Active Hostilities" has been registered in the Verkhovna Rada.

The document serves as a budgetary accompaniment to the basic bill on the status of participants ensuring the livelihood of the population, functioning of the state, and critical infrastructure in areas of active hostilities.

Its purpose is to create a budgetary and legal mechanism for implementing social protection guarantees for persons who actually and personally perform socially necessary functions under conditions of active hostilities.

The explanatory note states that such persons ensure the operation of territorial communities, state and municipal institutions, critical infrastructure facilities, life support systems, medical, transport, communal, and other basic services. At the same time, the current Budget Code does not contain special mechanisms for financing the corresponding social protection guarantees.

Essence of legislative changes

The bill proposes amendments to Articles 87, 89, and 97 of the Budget Code of Ukraine, as well as the addition of a new Article 103-7 to the Code.

The key innovation is the creation of a separate budgetary instrument for financing social protection guarantees for a new category of persons — participants ensuring the livelihood of the population, functioning of the state, and critical infrastructure in areas of active hostilities.

Additionally, the bill includes separate changes extending until 2037 the effective date of provisions of the Budget Code related to financing patronage services for children and payments for child maintenance in the family of a patronage caregiver.

New state budget expenditures

The bill proposes to supplement paragraph 9 of part one of Article 87 of the Budget Code with a new subparagraph.

The bill provides for state programs ensuring temporary social protection guarantees for persons granted the status of participants ensuring the livelihood of the population, functioning of the state, and critical infrastructure in areas of active hostilities according to the law.

Such programs may include financing payments, compensations, insurance, medical, psychological, rehabilitation, housing, transport, evacuation, material and domestic, and other support at the expense of the state budget.

Local communities will be allowed to finance support programs

Amendments to Article 89 of the Budget Code propose granting local budgets the right to finance relevant support programs.

The bill establishes that local programs and measures to ensure temporary social protection guarantees may be implemented for persons who actually and personally perform or have performed relevant functions in the interests of the respective territorial community, municipal enterprises, institutions and organizations, critical infrastructure facilities of communal ownership, or other facilities ensuring the livelihood of the respective community.

It is envisaged that such expenditures may be directed to compensatory, guarantee, insurance, medical, psychological, rehabilitation, housing, transport, evacuation, material and domestic, and other support measures directly related to the actual and personal performance by these persons of socially necessary functions in areas of active hostilities.

At the same time, the bill establishes that financing will be carried out within the budget allocations of local budgets, as well as from subventions from the state budget, interbudgetary transfers, international technical assistance, charitable aid, and other sources not prohibited by law.

A new subvention from the state budget is introduced

A separate change in the bill is the introduction of a subvention from the state budget to local budgets to finance social protection guarantees for the respective category of persons.

The bill proposes to provide a subvention to ensure temporary social protection guarantees for persons granted the status of participants ensuring the livelihood of the population, functioning of the state, and critical infrastructure in areas of active hostilities according to the law.

For this purpose, Article 97 of the Budget Code is proposed to be supplemented with a new paragraph 3-1.

New Article 103-7 of the Budget Code

A separate innovation is the introduction of a special Article 103-7, which will define the procedure for financing such a subvention.

The bill establishes that the subvention from the state budget to local budgets is directed to financing measures provided by law regarding persons granted the respective status.

At the expense of the subvention, expenditures may be made on compensatory, guarantee, insurance, medical, psychological, rehabilitation, housing, transport, evacuation, material and domestic, and other support measures directly related to the actual and personal performance by such persons of socially necessary functions in areas of active hostilities.

The bill establishes that the subvention is provided taking into account the number of persons granted the respective status, confirmed periods of their actual and personal performance of functions in the respective territories, the nature of such functions, the level of security risks, the capacity of the respective local budgets, and other criteria determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

The procedure and conditions for granting and using the subvention, distribution of its volume among local budgets, list of supporting documents, reporting procedure, and control over the targeted use of funds will be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

The bill excludes automatic occurrence of budget obligations

One of the important changes is the establishment of budget safeguards.

The bill provides that expenditures from the subvention are made exclusively within the budget appropriations established by the Law on the State Budget of Ukraine for the respective budget period.

It is also established that granting a person the status of participant ensuring the livelihood of the population, functioning of the state, and critical infrastructure in areas of active hostilities for periods preceding the entry into force of the law is not an independent basis for the occurrence of budget obligations for past budget periods, except in cases expressly provided by the Law on the State Budget of Ukraine or a separate budget program.

Patronage over a child is proposed to be financed under the current model until 2037

A separate provision of the bill proposes amendments to the Law of Ukraine dated December 20, 2016 No. 1794-VIII "On Amendments to the Budget Code of Ukraine."

The document provides for replacing the figures "2027" with "2037" in its final provisions.

The explanatory note states that this change aims to eliminate the risk of simultaneous application of Budget Code norms that differently define sources of financing expenditures for patronage services for children and payments of social assistance for child maintenance in the family of a patronage caregiver.

Thus, the bill is aimed at creating a budgetary basis for implementing social protection guarantees for persons who ensure the livelihood of the population, functioning of the state, and critical infrastructure in areas of active hostilities. In addition, the document proposes to postpone until 2037 the change of the financing model for patronage services for children and corresponding social assistance, preserving the current order of their financing.

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