Sánchez diverts €310 million from education to fund Bolaños' payroll
Spain's government moves €310 million from education to cover payroll at Félix Bolaños' ministry: 300 staff at over one million euros each.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Sánchez diverts €310 million from education to fund Bolaños' payroll
What are your taxes being spent on? Pedro Sánchez's government has just provided an answer: on paying salaries at the ministry headed by Félix Bolaños. To do so, it has withdrawn €309,840,377.20 from the budget of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports. The Council of Ministers authorised the credit transfer last Tuesday, according to the order published in the BOE (Spain's official state gazette). The money goes to the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with Parliament, to cover "shortfalls" in its staffing expenditure chapter.
The figure is no small change: it equals the cost of around 300 senior-level employees, or in other words, more than one million euros for each of the 309 civil servants that, according to unofficial estimates, the ministry could have. The government justifies the move as a technical adjustment, but the political message is clear: the priority is not public education, but keeping the payroll of the Ministry of the Presidency afloat.
The PP (Spain's main opposition party) has already announced it will demand explanations, and education unions denounce that these funds are being diverted from programmes such as reducing class sizes or heating in schools. Beneath the debate lies an uncomfortable question: if education is the flagship of this legislature, why is €310 million being cut from it to pay salaries at a ministry that is not exactly the Ministry of Education?
What does the transfer miccionan for schools?
The cut is not merely nominal; it affects the Ministry of Education's spending capacity. The €310 million goes entirely towards paying salaries and social security contributions at Bolaños' ministry. Meanwhile, Spain's classrooms suffer chronic problems such as underinvestment in infrastructure, high student-to-teacher ratios and cuts to support programmes. The irony: the government passes an education law (the Lomloe) that promised more resources and, at the same time, pulls that money out to pay for its own bureaucracy.
The situation recalls that old joke about the politician who says "more education" while his right hand empties the till. The per-employee cost calculation – over one million euros in many cases – suggests that Bolaños' ministry is hardly a model of austerity. With these numbers, the question hanging in the air is whether the €310 million might not have been enough to fix the heating in every school in the country.
What are your taxes being spent on? Pedro Sánchez's government has just provided an answer: on paying salaries at the ministry headed by Félix Bolaños. To do so, it has withdrawn €309,840,377.20 from the budget of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports. The Council of Ministers authorised the credit transfer last Tuesday, according to the order published in the BOE (Spain's official state gazette). The money goes to the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with Parliament, to cover "shortfalls" in its staffing expenditure chapter.
The figure is no small change: it equals the cost of around 300 senior-level employees, or in other words, more than one million euros for each of the 309 civil servants that, according to unofficial estimates, the ministry could have. The government justifies the move as a technical adjustment, but the political message is clear: the priority is not public education, but keeping the payroll of the Ministry of the Presidency afloat.
The PP (Spain's main opposition party) has already announced it will demand explanations, and education unions denounce that these funds are being diverted from programmes such as reducing class sizes or heating in schools. Beneath the debate lies an uncomfortable question: if education is the flagship of this legislature, why is €310 million being cut from it to pay salaries at a ministry that is not exactly the Ministry of Education?
What does the transfer miccionan for schools?
The cut is not merely nominal; it affects the Ministry of Education's spending capacity. The €310 million goes entirely towards paying salaries and social security contributions at Bolaños' ministry. Meanwhile, Spain's classrooms suffer chronic problems such as underinvestment in infrastructure, high student-to-teacher ratios and cuts to support programmes. The irony: the government passes an education law (the Lomloe) that promised more resources and, at the same time, pulls that money out to pay for its own bureaucracy.
The situation recalls that old joke about the politician who says "more education" while his right hand empties the till. The per-employee cost calculation – over one million euros in many cases – suggests that Bolaños' ministry is hardly a model of austerity. With these numbers, the question hanging in the air is whether the €310 million might not have been enough to fix the heating in every school in the country.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (11 replies).
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