Minister of Religious Services (Shas) Yitzchak Cohen announced on Thursday that following a great deal of effort, there is good news on the horizon for the nation’s local religious councils concerning funding and salaries of employees. It is not rare that mikve women (balanit mikve), rabbis of cities & municipalities and other employees have to wait extended periods for their salaries.

Cohen explained this is because the national government to date kicked in 40% of the budget for religious councils, and local government was responsible to furnish the other 60%, but in actuality, this rarely if ever happened.

Now he explained, the national government will kick in 75% and sanctions will be taken against municipalities that fail to meet their responsibility. In most cases, the funds will be taken from their national governmental funding and handed over to religious councils. There is also a formula which will create a scale as to how much local government must participate, depending on the size and other criteria.

Cohen is optimistic that the new arrangement will ensure employees of the nation’s religious councils will now begin receiving their monthly salaries on time. The current (old) system has resulted in a deficit of NIS 150 million.

It remains unclear just how the deficit will be addressed.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)