Benidorm allocates the 214,000 euros that was budgeted this year for festive entities to aid families

Benidorm City Council is going to allocate the funds included in the 2020 budget for festive entities, 214,000 euros, to municipal aid to families. This has been announced today by the mayor, Toni Pérez, who has indicated that "this extraordinary injection of funds for family aid is carried out in agreement with the festive entities, which have renounced their subsidies."

The 214,000 euros that are going to be deducted from the Festival budget correspond to: 150,000 euros of nominative grant for the Commission of Festes Majors Patronals; 35,000 euros from the Associació de Penyes ‘Verge del Sofratge’; the 8,000 euros that we contribute annually to Beniardá festivities; and the 21,000 euros reserved for aid to festive entities in a competitive competition regime.

The mayor has indicated that “we are going to supplement this amount with an additional 286,000 euros charged to the current expenditure of the municipal budget, thus injecting another half a million euros in additional to these municipal aid to families that we aim to mitigate the economic and social effects of the crisis of the Covid-19 ”. Toni Pérez has pointed out that "this additional economic injection will be the second we carry out to increase resources to help Benidorm families who are going through difficult times as a result of the health crisis." In fact, "this Monday we are going to fully approve a first budget modification of 500,000 euros, to which this second one, which we are already working on, will be added shortly for the same amount."

Thus, "with both additional contributions we will be allocating more than 2.4 million euros to these aid, one million more than originally planned.

Toni Pérez recalled that “when we created these grants, which have already reached more than 2,000 people, we provided them with a budget of more than 1.4 million euros, which corresponded to 20% of the surplus in 2019, the maximum percentage that the Government of Spain has allowed the City Councils to allocate to measures related to the coronavirus crisis ”.

However, “that initial budget was insufficient to meet all the requests that have been received, and therefore, from the conviction that these grants are totally a priority, we have provided additional funds from current resources of the 2020 budget, regardless of investments or current expenses planned for this year ”.

The mayor has insisted that "this City Council will do everything possible and impossible, sparing no effort and resources, so that all requests that meet the requirements see these aid satisfied this year, injecting money into the homes of Benidorm that need it most. ”.

According to the figures provided by the mayor, 6,135 applications have been received, of which more than 4,100 have already been processed, about 70% of those submitted. To date, 1,953 grants have been granted and 206 resources have been estimated, bringing to 2,159 applications approved when the beneficiaries meet the requirements.

In addition, there are about a thousand requests already evaluated, which can be resolved practically automatically as soon as the first budget modification of 500,000 euros that is approved on Monday becomes effective. In total, it is estimated that the aid will eventually reach about 4,000 people, who depending on their situation will receive a total of 750, 900 or 1,050 euros to pay in three monthly installments.