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The Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast
November 14, 2009. XXXIII Session of the Tomsk Oblast State Duma  As always, Boris Maltsev, Speaker of the Tomsk Oblast State Duma, opened the session (opening speech).
At the session were present Valery Sizov, vice-rector on socio-economic policy of the Tomsk State Teachers’ Training University and students of the Economics and Management Department from the same university who took advantage of the voters’ right to attend a session of the regional legislative body.
The deputies adopted in the first reading the draft Law of Tomsk Oblast “On 2010 budget of Tomsk Territorial Compulsory Health Insurance Fund and planning period of 2011 and 2012.” For 2010 the Duma budgeted revenues of 4,355m rubles, which is almost equal to 2009 budget revenues.
In the first reading the deputies adopted the draft budget of Tomsk Oblast for 2010 and the planning period of 2011 and 2012. A budget conference committee was created and its members approved. The bill was supported by 34 deputies and 1 deputy voted against. Oksana Kozlovskaya, Deputy Governor of Tomsk Oblast, presented the draft budget to the Duma members. She admitted that the budget is very tight. However, the executive authority of the Oblast will work hard to find opportunities to increase budget revenues.
Touching upon such a sensitive issue as salaries of public sector workers, Oksana Kozlovskaya assured the deputies that the public sector salary pool will not be cut against 2009. On the contrary, 250m rubles will be allocated to establish an ‘incentive’ pool. With a new labor remuneration system in place, major share of the public sector workers’ salaries will depend on performance. Oksana Kozlovskaya described the direct relation between the amount of salary and labor efficiency as ‘progressive approach’. Given the new incentives, some of the public sector workers will be paid more in the next year than they currently get.
Vladimir Ponomarenko, Chairman of the Budgetary and Financial Committee of the Tomsk Oblast State Duma, emphasized that major work over the draft budget for the next year is still ahead to be handled by the Conference Committee where the deputies will work together with the financial experts of the Oblast Administration. The Committee will closely search for and analyze all opportunities which can bring additional revenues to the budget. It will also have to carefully calculate costs to be incurred by the public sector organizations when utility tariffs will grow. Sergey Nikitenko, Chairman of the Audit Chamber, presented to the deputies the opinion of the Chamber on the draft budget. He said that indeed there are opportunities to increase the budget revenues. And they should fall under the closest scrutiny of the Conference Committee. Special attention must be paid to additional revenues that could be generated from usage and privatization of public property. When talking about the cost structure, the head of the Audit Chamber expressed confidence that the costs could be reduced through improved efficiency and transparency. Sergey Nikitenko believes that the deputies’ proposals to reduce public administration costs should also be included in the agenda of the Conference Committee meetings.
This year the Committee will include the following deputies:
Boris MaltsevVladimir PonomarenkoAleksey Didenko Vladimir Dolgikh Nikolay Kirillov Ivan Klyain Vladimir Kravchenko Sergey Sakharov Nikolay Sereda Alexandr Tereshchenko
In the first reading the deputies approved amendments to the law “On municipal elections in Tomsk Oblast.” The draft amendments submitted for the deputies’ consideration involve changes in the procedure of determining results of the elections of the heads of municipal entities in Tomsk Oblast. The winner at the elections will be the candidate who obtained more votes than the other candidates but not less than 35% of the votes. And the second round of elections will be held if none of the candidates obtained the required number of votes. The amendments provoked many comments and Vice-Speaker Grigory Shamin who chaired the session suggested that the law is considered only in the first reading despite the proposal of the working group to examine it in two readings at once. The deputies agreed with the suggestion.
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