Tournus and the other French local authorities

The town and its budget:

The town Tournus:
The town Tournus had 5,884 inhabitants in 2009 (source:INSEE).
It looks like a city with a clear Town Centre and many small buildings in this centre and around.
It has a rich historic and artistic past, really interesting for tourism, and an important range of industrial companies.
The town is managed by a mayor now helped by 7 deputy mayors (8 at the most). All belong to a town council of 29 members elected through universal suffrage. This vote needs two steps and is partly proportional.

This system gives a strong majority to the mayor: the winning list gets at least 22 seats among the 29, even with only a bit more of 50% of the expressed suffrages.
However, when 3 lists still compete at the 2^nd turn, this numerical advantage can be reduced.
The town councillors are elected for 6 years. Next elections will happen in March 2020.
The town council meetings are public and every citizen may seat in the room to listen to the debates. However, people are not allowed taking part in the discussions or making any trouble in the room.
Budget:
The budget is established and voted in several parts by the town council of Tournus: general budget of the town and related budgets for water purification and supply, for the campsite, for rented industrial estates and, since 2005, for the cinema. Each of these budgets comprises a section for functioning and one for investment.
The balance of each section must be null but the investment section may be partly financed by borrowing. When this happens (usually each year, in fact), the result of the functioning section must be higher than the cost of the loans. As for a family, loans must be paid back and they generate interests, so they are an expensive way for paying some important and urgent spending. Prestige spending are forbidden.

The town collects four kinds of taxes:
- on housing (paid by owners or tenants),
- on built areas (paid by the owner only),
- on non-built areas (paid by farmers, owners of fields, meadows, forests, etc.),
- on companies (shops, workshops, offices or factories).
The town also receives subsidies from the Department, the Region, the State and from Europe. The State also pays grants in order to maintain a financial fairness between "rich" and "poor" towns.

A primitive budget is voted in the first quarter of the year. Each month, the town council can vote some budget updates to adjust the accounts due to new spending or spending (or revenues) modifications.

The town council also checks if the budget is correctly carried out by the mayor: the operating account of the previous year (including the primitive budget and all the updates) must be voted before the council may examine the budget of the new year.

The main amounts of the operating account:

	2002		2005		2008		2014
Budget	Functioning	Investment	Functioning	Investment	Functioning	Investment	Functioning	Investment
General	7,322,405 €	3,637,458 €	7,899,495 €	3,020,851 €	8,220,737 €	3,955,634 €	8 592 531 €	2 417 416 €
Water purification	228,567 €	215,458 €	224,078 €	178,710 €	182,391 €	117,712 €	418 609 €	247 165 €
Campsite	135,025 €	3,961 €	100,208 €	3,543 €	-	-	-	-
Industrial estates	384,370 €	557,848 €	267,897 €	362,888 €	264,218 €	14,600 €	218 170 €	136 496 €
Cinema	-	-	140,124 €	7,670 €	146,998 €	0 €	180 467 €	11 654 €

After the town council has voted the budget or the operating account, these become public documents, which each citizen may consult freely in the town hall. However, people are not allowed to take the originals out of the town hall and they are due to pay the cost of the copies if they do want some.

The previously associated town Plottes:

Plottes is a village with only 602 inhabitants.
Housing is mainly individual, even in the centre of the village.
Many people in the village are working in farming. The vineyard grows again after it was partly destroyed in the end of the 19^th century.

The administration has been closely involved with the Tournus one since mid-1972 to March 2001. However, a deputy mayor, who had less authority than the mayor of Tournus, was managing the village.
An advisory commission was representing the population.
In addition, the deputy mayor and 2 other councillors were elected as members of the town council of Tournus. These 3 elective representatives were to be added to 26 Tournusian councillors.

Since March 2001, Plottes has become independent again from Tournus. New cooperation systems are now available that look better adapted to the needs of the population than the previous association.

Towns associations (district, SIVOM):

Canton
The canton is not a local authority.
Before March 2015, each canton yet elected a "General Counsellor" who represented his canton in the "General Council" (the authority of the Department) for 6 years.
Until March 2015, the canton of Tournus was composed of Tournus and 13 villages. The population was about 11,000 inhabitants spread along an east-west axis on the 2 banks of the river Saône.

Since March 2015, all the cantons are reshaped and the vote follows totally revised rules.
In March 2015, the canton of Tournus has lost the villages of Romenay and Ratenelle and received the former canton of Sennecey-le-Grand plus 2 villages from the canton of Lugny (Chardonnay and Grévilly), so it is now composed of 31 villages or small towns.

On March 2015, the inhabitants were to vote for a ticket of 2 representants, necessarily a man and a woman, plus 2 other people, also a man and a woman, who will replace them if they resign or die before the end of their six-year term.
SIVOM Bresse Tournugeois
A SIVOM is a group of local authorities pooling public services. It is one of the first steps of the cooperation between towns or villages. Tournus and its area have now moved to the second step.
A SIVOM may not collect taxes so each town pays a fee, proportionally to its population.
Each of the towns which were a member of the SIVOM Bresse Tournugeois was represented by 2 people chosen among the town council (all along this period, Tournus and Plottes were associated and each of them had 2 representatives). Established since 1993, the SIVOM was first grouping only 13 of the 14 towns in the canton of Tournus (Le Villars was not a member) until Ratenelle and Romenay joined the Community of towns of Cuisery.
The competences of the SIVOM Bresse Tournugeois were the collect of domestic rubbish, the carriage of meals to invalid or old people's house. A study was launched to add a competence for tourism.
The next cooperation step is the community of towns: since 2002, the SIVOM has been transformed in a community of towns.
Community of towns
After many events all along the year 2001, the Community was born in the early months of 2002.
Tournus, Lacrost, Préty, La Truchère, Le Villars, Farges-les-Mâcon, Uchizy, La Chapelle-sous-Brancion, Martailly-les-Brancion, Royer and Ozenay (11 towns) are members of the community. Plottes first wanted to stay independent for some more time and joined the community in 2008. Ratenelle and Romenay have joined the community of Cuisery, closer to them than Tournus.
Communities of towns are allowed to collect the same taxes as the towns. They are local authorities as the Department or the Region.

Department:

Since March 2015, the Department named Saône-et-Loire counts 29 cantons (previously 57) spread over the geographic areas named Bresse, Val De Saône, Charolais and Morvan. The population amount is 544,893 habitants (the main in the Region Burgundy).
The Departmental Council (previously General Council) is the assembly of the Department. It deliberates about the administration of the Department. The counsellors seat in the chef-lieu which is Mâcon, second town in the Department for population.
Until 2015, half of the General Council was elected each 3 years by universal suffrage and the counsellors were elected for 6 years. The current Council has been elected on March 22^nd and 29^th, 2015, with totally revised rules: each canton is now represented by 2 councillors, necessarily a man and a woman, still for 6 years but the whole council is now elected at the same time.

Since 1982 the Departmental Council is in charge of building, maintenance and administrative functioning of secondary schools, and of their gymnasium (the State is still in charge of the educational functioning), maintenance of secondary roads, building, maintenance and functioning of Fire Help Centres (Firemen), social security.

While the Prefect is the link between the State and the Department, the President of the Departmental Council is responsible for the administration of the Department. The General Council decides the amount of the taxes collected by the Department. These taxes are the same that those collected by towns: on housing (paid by owners or tenants), on built areas (paid by the owner only), on non-built areas (paid by farmers, owners of fields, meadows, forests, etc.), on companies (shops, workshops, offices or factories). One additional tax is only collected by the Department on each vehicle (cars, buses, lorries, and motorbikes) owned by the firms in the Department. The Department also receives grants from the State and from Europe. A part of these is used to help the towns' investments.

Electoral constituency (in French, circonscription):

Until 2012, Tournus was belonging to the 6^th electoral constituency of the Department named Saône-et-Loire. It is now a part of the 4^th constituency that covers a similar area.
This electoral constituency comprises the area named "Bresse louhanaise" (around the town Louhans), the Tournugeois (around Tournus) and the part of the Saône valley between Tournus and Chalon-Sur-Saône.

As the canton, the electoral constituency is not a local authority. However, it is an important feature of the political life in France, while each electoral constituency elects a Deputy who seats in the French National Assembly. Each Deputy has a substitute who replaces him when he resigns.

The present Deputy, Cécile Untermaier, shares her time between her office in the building of the National Assembly in Paris and her office in Louhans.
As any other deputy, she votes new laws or law amendments.
She visits frequently the towns and villages in her electoral constituency in order to meet the electors.
Most of towns in her electoral constituency lend her an office where people can meet her.

You can visit her Internet site: http://cecileuntermaier.blogspot.fr.

"Arrondissement":

The "arrondissement" is only an administrative unit under the authority of a deputy prefect who ensures the relation between the State and local administrations.

Tournus belongs to the arrondissement of Mâcon. The other arrondissements in Saône-et-Loire are Chalon-Sur-Saône, Autun, Louhans and Charolles.

Since the decentralization laws the Prefect and the Deputy Prefects no more rule the Department, this function being assumed by the "General Council", but they still represent the State near local authorities and they check if the decisions of local assemblies are really authorised by law.

Region:

The region Burgundy (Bourgogne) groups the departments named Côte-d'Or, Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire and Yonne that is 1,609,700 inhabitants in 2,044 towns or villages. Only 11 conurbations are more than 20,000 inhabitants.

The Regional Council is elected for 6 years. Several lists compete and suffrages are counted separately in each Department. Since 2004 to 2010, each list counted 65 names, dispatched by Department, with necessarily as many men and women except an admitted difference of 1 for odd number of candidates. It was a proportional suffrage that gave an advantage to the winning list. People had to vote for the whole list, without changing or crossing out a name and there were 2 turns.

In 2015, the number of French regions will be reduced and Bourgogne will be associated with Franche-Comté, the new region being effective on January, 1st, 2016. By the end of January 2015, the date of the next election is not yet precisely known, we only know that it should be on December 2015.

Since the decentralisation laws of 1982 the Region is in charge of very important questions: secondary and high school, universities, apprenticeship and vocational training, economical interventions, environment, transport, development, knowledge, research.

Only a small part of its budget is used for functioning but the main vocation of the Region is preparing the future, which means important investments.

The President of the Regional Council is the executive chief of the Region. Elected by the Regional Council among its members, he is in charge of the administration and the management of the Region and he is responsible for the application of the decisions took by the Regional Council.
As for the Department, a Prefect of Region is the link between the State and the Region.