The Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast
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45TH SESSION OF THE TOMSK OBLAST DUMA OF THE 5TH CONVOCATION
The 45th session of the Legislative Duma of the 5th convocation took place on September 22. Speaker Oksana Kozlovskaya addressed the deputies with a traditional speech.
“Russia is summarizing the results of the national election day. Numbers speak for the scale of the election campaign 2015: 83 constituent entities and 59 million voters participated, 21 regions elected governors, 11 regions elected deputies to regional parliaments, 23 regions elected deputies to region’s capitals.
In Tomsk Oblast we elected 20 heads of districts and villages, members to 20 Oblast and city districts, and one deputy to the Tomsk Oblast Duma – Dmitry Nikulin.
I am especially thankful to all those who voted in the region’s cities, towns and villages even though the turnout was just slightly above 23%. The Oblast Administration will give a more detailed report later today. And I would like to congratulate on behalf of the Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast all elected heads of municipal entities (nine were elected for the first time) and our colleagues – deputies of representative bodies.”
Summary of the Speaker’s speech.
New Duma deputy
Speaker Oksana Kozlovskaya handed deputy credentials and a deputy pin to Dmitry Nikulin elected supplementarily in the Chulym single-member constituency No. 21. He joined the Oblast faction of the United Russia party and applied to be admitted to the Tomsk Oblast Duma Committee for Legislation, State Structure and Safety.
Associate professor at the Tomsk Teachers Training University, member of the Oblast Communist Party Andrey Petrov left the Duma.
The Speaker and several Duma deputies spoke highly of the performance of their colleague in the Oblast parliament where he was the pro bono leader of the Public Utilities Committee. They wished him a successful new role in his new capacity as Tomsk City Duma deputy.
Andrey Petrov thanked the people of the city and the region for trust and the deputies and the Duma staff for the experience that he gained working as Oblast Duma deputy for the last four years. He expressed hope that in his new role in the Tomsk City Duma he will keep in touch with the Oblast parliament.
Results of the election campaign
The deputies discussed a report on the results of the election campaign to elect deputies of representative bodies and heads of municipal entities of Tomsk Oblast.
The turnout for the elections of heads of municipal entities was 38.28%. Overall turnout for the region was 23.12%. In municipal districts and rural communities the turnout was higher than in city districts.
Bakcharsky District had the highest turnout of 51.16%; Aleksandrovsky District had 48.52%; Zyryansky District had 44.34%. Anatoly Rozhkov noted that the turnout was significantly lower in the districts that were not electing heads of districts.
Rural roads
Municipal roads funds will be refilled in different ways depending on the quality of roads. The Oblast Duma deputies adopted in two readings a new law which distributes fuel excise taxes across municipal entities depending on the length and surface of roads. The new arrangement will be introduced by degrees – from 2017 to 2019. The initiators believe that the new law will stimulate municipal entities to properly maintain roads and documents; help put in the books 1,600 km of roads; and obtain up to 50 million rubles from the federal budget.
Duma deputies Nikolay Vyatkin, Paruir Yavrumyan, Vladimir Kravchenko, Leonid Glok, Boris Maltsev, Oleg Gromov, and Aleksander Tereschenko took part in the discussion. On the one hand, the new rule may result in losing part of the fuel excise tax in certain districts, on the other hand the region will receive more money from the State because unaccounted kilometers of roads will be properly booked and their quality will improve. At the same time Boris Maltsev raised a question why the gas price for rural people should include a fuel excise tax if they only use their own rural roads. However, this question requires federal authority.
The new law was supported by the majority of the deputies.
Study in Tomsk!
Tomsk universities every year raise expectations for their applicants. The Oblast Duma deputies discussed the report of Deputy Governor of Tomsk Oblast for the Research and Education Complex and Innovation Policy Mikhail Sonkin on the results of the enrollment campaign in Tomsk universities.
Nikolay Vyatkin noted that the universities set the bar rather high for first year students and some cannot keep up. Leonid Glok cited a report presented at the Oblast teachers conference which said that the Russian government will not allow to increase the number of places in teachers training groups. It is obvious that the demand exceeds the approved plan. Evgeny Pavlov thanked the Oblast Administration for the positioning project Study in Tomsk implemented in cooperation with a university. He emphasized that the project had an outstanding result.
Lev Pichurin informed that the federal ministries are entertaining an idea of significantly reducing the number of higher educational institutions.
“Is Tomsk safe? Or should we be on the alert?” he asked. Oksana Kozlovskaya pointed out that competition over places funded by business with job placement guarantees should be stiffer than that over state-funded places because in the first case the student has a guaranteed career after graduation.
Gennady Vidyayev asked a question about placement possibilities like it was in Soviet times.
Aleksander Tereschenko raised a question about extra exams for applicants.
