Jerusalem City Hall on Tuesday 4 Shevat, day three of the municipality strike, warns that if the national government does not increase the city’s annual budget for 2017, the results will be disastrous. Mayor Nir Barkat explained that thousands of city employees will be impacted and there will be a fatal blow to services provided to residents by the city.

The city explains that without additional funding programs for education, youth at risk, welfare services, culture, sport, local community councils and city maintenance will all suffer. The mayor explains that hundreds of sanitation workers would lose their jobs and leave the city in a state of disrepair. The city will be compelled to close classrooms which the city is currently renting for NIS 100 million annually after taking a bank loan to do so. Those students he explains will have to remain at home in addition to parents having to pick up the costs for many programs now being funded by the city.

The mayor calls on Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon to end the stranglehold on the capital and release additional funding to permit striking city workers to return to their jobs.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)