From the 2026 budget audit
Central support for field guard services: hold flat at 178 million Ft.
A small central top-up to field guard services — which already operate through municipal and landholder contributions — frozen at 178 million Ft with no inflation indexation.
Roughly 45 Ft per taxpayer per year — 178 million Ft total — as a central supplement to a service primarily funded by municipalities and landholders.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: a central government top-up that supplements the municipal and landholder contributions already funding field guard patrols. The unseen: the marginal cost creeping onto the general taxpayer each year as the central share is indexed — the freeze stops that creep.
Objection
"Field guard services protect rural property — this small top-up is the minimum state contribution to a legitimate security function."
Answer
Field guard services are mainly organised and funded at municipal level and through landholder contributions; the central line is a supplement, not the core. The freeze holds the supplement flat — no reduction — while real-terms discipline applies and the municipal-and-landholder share carries any marginal cost growth. Property protection remains; only the automatic inflationary top-up ends.
Share if you think the central supplement to a locally-funded service should stop growing automatically.
The analyst's verdict
Special support for field guard services
Rationale
Field guard services patrol agricultural land against crop theft and field damage. There is a defensible property-protection element here — protection against theft is closer to a rights-protection function than the sectoral-subsidy lines. But field guard services are organised and substantially funded at municipal level and through landholder contributions; this line is a small central top-up rather than the core of the service. Nominal freeze holds the central contribution flat while real-terms discipline applies and the municipal-and-landholder share carries the marginal cost.
Transition mechanism
Hold the nominal allocation; no indexation.
Affected groups
Field guard services and the landholders they serve; no immediate change.
Free Society Institute
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