From the 2026 budget audit
830 million Ft to administer a function being wound down.
The regional development councils exist to allocate the Regional Development Fund. As the fund phases out, the councils' operating budget follows it to zero.
Roughly 204 Ft per taxpayer per year — 830 millió Ft to run the administrative bodies that distribute the Regional Development Fund's capital.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: the councils' staff and the coordination they provide to regional allocation decisions. The unseen: the cost of maintaining an administrative apparatus whose entire purpose is to manage a discretionary allocation the reform is removing.
Objection
"The councils represent regional interests and give local voices a say in development priorities."
Answer
A council whose mandate is to administer a discretionary capital-allocation fund represents the interests of fund applicants, not citizens generally. When the fund's allocation rounds cease, the coordinating function it performs has no enduring purpose. The four-year phase-out gives the councils' staff a realistic transition window; what it does not do is pay the councils to continue after the work they were set up to do no longer exists.
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The analyst's verdict
Operating Support for Development Councils
Rationale
This line funds the operating costs of the regional development councils — the bodies that administer the regional allocation decisions the Területfejlesztési Alap funds. The councils exist to operate a discretionary allocation function; once that function is wound down, the bodies that operate it have no enduring rationale. The honest classification is phase-out parallel to the underlying activity: as the Területfejlesztési Alap's allocation rounds cease over four years, the councils' operating support tracks the same glide to zero. Maintaining the administrative apparatus of a function that is being discontinued would be paying for the second-best substitute for a market discipline the reform is restoring.
Transition mechanism
Linear phase-out over 4 years, tracking the Területfejlesztési Alap wind-down. The councils' staff hold employment contracts; the four-year horizon gives a realistic transition window, and where staff are on permanent contracts the final-year contraction is handled with severance appropriate to the headcount.
Affected groups
The development councils' administrative staff; the four-year horizon provides a transition window. Member regions lose a coordinating body whose function the reform devolves.
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