The Verkhovna Rada considered the draft state budget – 2025: what changes should be expected
The Budget Committee of the Verkhovna Rada has recommended the draft state budget for 2025 for the first reading, while proposing several significant changes. According to Roksolana Pidlasa, the head of the Budget Committee, the committee proposed that the government redirect all the funds of the Road Fund, which amount to UAH 43.2 billion, to the priority needs of national security and defence.
Regarding pension payments for Chornobyl victims, Pidlas noted that they are planned to be limited exclusively to people who lived in the exclusion zone between 1986 and 1993. According to preliminary estimates, this will save about UAH 15 billion. Earlier, in March, such restrictions caused protests among residents of Zhytomyr region.
The Committee also proposed to postpone the introduction of bonuses for local court judges in 2025, reducing the corresponding costs of their financing. Starting in April 2025, the Verkhovna Rada apparatus plans to introduce a graded remuneration system, where salaries will be determined by the value of the position and its impact on overall results.
In addition, the committee advises the government to consider directing 4% of the personal income tax (PIT) directly to the budgets of amalgamated territorial communities (ATCs), while abandoning subventions to regional budgets to compensate for tariff differences in utilities. They also proposed to leave UAH 12.9 billion to local governments, cancelling the reverse transfer to the state budget.
Another recommendation of the committee was to allocate at least UAH 2 billion for humanitarian demining. It was also decided not to transfer hospital accounts to the State Treasury – currently, more than UAH 22 billion is transferred to hospital bank accounts every month under the medical guarantee programme.
