Five key priorities covering welfare, transport and regulation reform submitted
Namyangju Mayor Choi Hyun-deok visited the National Assembly on Monday and presented a policy proposal to Kwon Chil-seung, policy committee chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, outlining the city's key priorities in livelihoods, transportation and regulatory reform.
Choi delivered a written proposal covering five core issues: transferring home-visit and facility-based long-term care benefits for the elderly to the national government, incorporating new rail links into the fifth National Railway Network Construction Plan and the metropolitan area transport implementation plan, and easing installation standards for agricultural work facilities and ancillary structures for agritourism and healing farms within development-restricted zones.
On the first issue, Choi asked the central government to ease the fiscal burden on local governments for elderly long-term care benefits. He called for the current system — under which local governments bear the costs when medical aid recipients are reclassified as long-term care beneficiaries — to be restructured either by transferring the responsibility to the national government or by expanding central funding.
Choi also stressed the need to expand the metropolitan transport network. He asked for cooperation in ensuring that new GTX lines (D, E, F and G) connecting to Namyangju, along with extensions of subway lines 3, 6 and 8, are reflected in national plans to meet the growing transport demand driven by large-scale residential development.
Choi particularly called for regulatory reform to ease installation standards for agricultural work facilities and ancillary structures for agritourism and healing farms within development-restricted zones, saying the changes would reduce inconvenience for farmers.
Meanwhile, the meeting also included Anyang Mayor Choi Dae-ho, chairman of the Gyeonggi Province Mayors and County Governors Association, and touched on concerns that the government's proposed creation of a future response fund could sharply reduce ordinary local allocation tax transfers, as well as ways to strengthen fiscal autonomy for local governments.
If the government's 2027 budget proposal to redirect increases in domestic tax revenue into the new fund proceeds as planned, next year's ordinary local allocation tax would fall far below initial projections, significantly constraining the fiscal capacity of basic local governments.
"Surging welfare demand and large-scale transport infrastructure expansion are challenges that cannot be met by the limited resources of basic local governments alone," Choi said. "If the creation of the future response fund further reduces local allocation tax transfers, the burden on local finances will only grow heavier."
He added that he hoped the party would actively review Namyangju's proposals and lead the way toward genuine decentralization and balanced regional development.
pjh@heraldcorp.com
