Mitzpe Ramon warns of financial collapse after losing state support

Mitzpe Ramon council head Eliyahu Vinter told the Knesset Interior Committee on Monday that the southern town is facing a budget crisis so severe it may soon be unable to collect garbage or pay salaries. He said the municipality has a 15 million shekel deficit and could run out of cash for wages within a month and a half to two months.

Vinter said the town, now about 6,000 residents, has been hurt by the 2016 cancellation of its “immigrant city” status, a change that he said created an annual deficit of about 15 million shekels, or 16% of the local budget. He said the fund created that year to reduce gaps in local authorities, which began operating under the Interior Ministry in 2017, currently gives Mitzpe Ramon only 1.5 million shekels, compared with 20.1 million for Beit Shemesh and 15.7 million for Beitar Illit.

According to Vinter, the town has some temporary relief from Interior Ministry grants for absorbing evacuees after October 7 and later after the war with Iran, but those one-time fixes are over. He said Mitzpe Ramon has tried to build economic independence through solar energy and development projects, including new hotels and housing agreements, but approvals have stalled and the long-term solution is still at least three years away.

Committee chair MK Yitzhak Kroizer said the situation reflects a broken state policy that leaves peripheral towns “on the verge of bankruptcy.” Representatives of the Interior Ministry and Finance Ministry attended but did not present a solution. The Finance Ministry said Mitzpe Ramon’s financial data are better than dozens of other authorities that receive no special aid, while Vinter said the ministries keep sending the issue back and forth without deciding who will fund it.