Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin came up with a number of tasks for his deputies regarding the global financial crisis.

The Finance Minister Victoria Golubtsova will have to draw up the changes to the regional budget’s project for 2009, cutting back on the expense items in proportion with the expected reduction in the amount of taxes to be paid next year. This is why the heads of the other ministries and departments, as well as heads of the region’s municipalities, were asked to think of the possible ways of reducing the budgetary expenditures.

The Governor admitted that this cutting down on the budgetary expenditures might lead to postponing the pay increase in the public sector from January 1, 2009 till a later date. The decision to this extent is to be made in the first quarter of 2009, depending on the region’s economic performance. At the same time, Petr Sumin did say that the public sector workers’ minimum wage would definitely be raised up to 4,300 RUR on January 1, 2009. This requires an additional 3 billion RUR. What is more, all of them will get an end-of-year bonus equal to their month’s pay. Then, all of the region’s 200,000 disabled will be given a 500-ruble incidental allowance on the Disabled People’s Day.

The budget, currently considered by the Legislative Assembly deputies, will be edited in accordance with the revised forecast of Chelyabinsk Region’s socioeconomic development for 2009. This forecast is being worked on by the region’s Ministry of Economic Development under the supervision of Deputy Governor Yuri Klepov.

The Governor also asked the Minster for Industry and Natural Resources Evgeniya Tefteleva to try and create an activity monitoring system for the region’s industrial enterprises and small and medium-scale businesses in order to have valid updates on the way the regional economy copes with the crisis. In addition, an ad hoc committee will keep on analyzing the state of the real sector and the banking system and the efficiency of crisis management as well as come up with additional action plans for all kinds of authorities, the spokesperson for the Governor reports.