site.btaMontana Mayor: Minimum Wage Raise Not Provided For in State Budget, Municipalities Pay Difference

The increase in the minimum wage since the beginning of 2026 is not considered in the extension of the 2025 state budget, which creates difficulties for Bulgarian municipalities, Montana Mayor Zlatko Zhivkov said on Wednesday.

He stressed that the additional expense resulting from the increase in the minimum wage for Montana Municipality is about EUR 300,000 per month. "These funds must be covered by the Municipality's own revenues, which are small in the first month of the year at about EUR 200,000," Zhivkov noted.

The Mayor noted that there are employees in several key municipal companies working at minimum wages, some of them even working on a 24-hour schedule. "We cannot wait for a regular state budget to be adopted in order to pay these people, who have been working at maximum workload since the beginning of the year because of the cold and snowy winter," Zhivkov underscored. 

Montana Municipality has paid everything owed to secondary budget spending units, such as kindergartens, schools, social institutions, sports complexes, he noted, adding that the tax campaign begins on Wednesday. "I expect all these secondary budget spending units to pay their due local taxes and fees in the coming days, so that there is more revenue in the municipal budget," Zhivkov stated.