Sienkevych sees no fault in the actions of the director of the financial department of Mykolaiv city hall

The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, said that he sees no fault in the actions of Vira Sviatelyk, director of the city council's finance department, and considers the criticism of her by the head of the planning and budget commission, Fedir Panchenko, to be erroneous.

He said this in a comment to NikVesti.

As you know, the head of the planning and budgeting commission of the Mykolaiv City Council, Fedir Panchenko, accused Vira Sviatelyk of making mistakes when planning the budget for 2025, which resulted in the city not having enough money to pay salaries to employees at the end of the year.

«I believe that Fedor Borisovich is somewhat mistaken in this matter, which is, after all, typical of all deputies. We can all be right or wrong. But in this situation, I want to emphasise that all the decisions Vira Yevhenivna makes, including those on setting limits, are agreed with me as mayor, with the deputy mayors and with our expectations from the decisions of the central government — the Cabinet of Ministers and MPs. That is why I believe that Vira Yevhenivna works exclusively within the limits of her powers and does not go beyond them,» said Oleksandr Sienkevych.

In addition, Oleksandr Sienkevych noted that Vira Sviatelyk ensures that the budget is balanced and noted that there was a lack of funds both last year and this year.

«In fact, Vira Svyatelyk, together with the Department of Finance, checks that the budget is balanced, i.e. that all requests from key spending units correspond to the funds that the city can actually finance. In fact, there was a lack of funds both last year and this year. Therefore, many managers actually used the limits communicated to them to fulfil their current tasks, reducing expenditures on salaries and utilities, waiting, along with me, for additional funds from the state budget to support the city budget,» added Oleksandr Sienkevych.

All budget payments have been suspended in Mykolaiv due to lack of funds for salaries and utility bills: what is known

As a reminder, on 19 December 2024, deputies of the Mykolaiv City Council approved the city budget for 2025. The total budget envisaged revenues of 5.414 billion hryvnias and expenditures of 5.285 billion hryvnias.

At that time, salary expenses for employees of executive bodies and budgetary institutions accounted for 38% of the total budget of Mykolaiv in 2025. The main source of budget revenues is income taxes paid by the residents of Mykolaiv.

In September 2025, Fedir Panchenko, a member of the Mykolaiv City Council and chairman of the planning and budget commission, warned of a shortage of funds in the city's budget for mandatory payments by the end of the year. At the time, he announced a figure of 200 million hryvnias.

He also spoke about this at a meeting of the City Council's budget committee on the same day when considering a decision to redistribute the city's budget. Back then, he said that it was necessary to look for money for protected items for November and December.

Subsequently, in early November, the main spending units and municipal enterprises of Mykolaiv were instructed to suspend all payments for expenditures that did not relate to protected items, namely public sector salaries and utility bills.

At the time, it was reported that the reason for this was the lack of budget funds to cover the protected budget items until the end of the year. The problem had been known for a long time, as the annual budget had not included funds for mandatory payments by the end of the year. The mayor's office hoped that budget overruns and savings during the year would help find the funds. However, this did not happen.

Later, Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych said that the city budget was looking for 60 million hryvnias for salaries and utilities.

NikVesti analysed the proposed changes to the distribution of expenditures in Mykolaiv' s budget and calculated that 7.2 million hryvnias would be allocated for salaries and utility bills (in the budget, this is an expenditure item «Management and administration in the relevant area») for the city's budget managers, rather than the 60 million hryvnias previously mentioned by the mayor.