Maxim Golosnoy – chairman of Elizavetovka, who doubled the village budget for 2 years, repaired roads, made lighting on the streets, stops, created a utility, he also collected garbage and cleaned up local landfills. He restored free access to Blue Lake, mastered the cryptocurrency, consumed gas for budgetary institutions free of charge. Maxim also achieved the reconstruction of the kindergarten. He also established a playground, landed a park. Due to over-fulfillment of the budget, he provided high standards of social protection – 100% compensation for treatment for villagers, moreover, 100% of children are insured at the expense of the budget from accidents and serious diseases.

Many times Maxim tried sued regional prosecutors and law enforcers, and bring them to justice through its inaction.

What is Elizavetovka village?

This is a very beautiful settlement, which is located 15 km from Kamenskoye city and 35 km from Dnipro city.

There are officially registered and live 2570 inhabitants.

There are companies such as “Oril leader”, which is a part of the MHP holding. We also have a greenhouse complex, a mechanized bakery, a cottage community and other enterprises that contribute and forms the basis of the local budget.

I’m excited to work as a village chief under conditions although regional administration or district administration hindering my efforts all the way. But nevertheless I’m the winner for now.

At the end of the year 2015  I was elected and I got the village in very bad condition. In fact, the street lights did not work after 12 o’clock at night.

There were no stops for city traffic here. The main part of the roads was unpaved. We had problems in the spring and fall, because the roads were blurry. The people could not drive and walk.

What do we have for today? 90% of the settlements have ultramodern outdoor lighting. Absolutely all our counters are settled with a day-night-system. That means that night lighting are paid at reduced charges.

Now we have stops for public transport. People are not standing in the rain or in the wind, they can sit and wait.

Today, we settled garbage collection, which has never been done before. It’s rare these days for the majority of villages in the Dnipropetrovsk region. A person pays 12-15 hryvna’s per month, signs agreement with the city utility and once a week the trash is taken directly from the yard.

We creating better living conditions for our inhabitants. 90% of the roads that were dirt, today have become slag. This slag primer is for future asphalting.

You know, funding is independence. When we’ve got the village it was actually kneeling. The village, which was originally the richest in the area, and maybe in the Dnipropetrovsk region, turned out to be the poorest. The budget in terms of numbers was very large, but most of the money was given to the needs of the district, and a very small part was left for itself, just for salaries and bonuses and they sang a favorite song of old-fashioned officials: sorry, there is no money.

We decided to stop this bad practice keep the most of the funds for the needs of the community. Everyone agreed.

We began to examine the efficiency of each landowner – what benefits they bring to the community, what are their contribution?

If a person has just seized the farmland and it remains unused, and we do not know that person and we do not understand what that person can do for the community, then that person gets the highest tax rate and that’s normal.

The highest tax rate is an excellent mechanism, which, regardless of the activity, is a good way to start for the open dialogue.

If a landowner gets 12% tax of the supervisory monetary evaluation, he either pays quietly to be left calm, or he comes to the meeting and say, “Sir, why’s that? Let’s work together or make an appointment somehow.”

Negotiation does not start in the village chief’s office, but at the deputies meeting. A person is asked “Who are you, what do you do, how have you contributed to the village in recent years, and how are you generally helpful?”

And this strategy has worked. In 2016, the village budget was about 3,200,000 hryvnas. And in 2018 it was already 7,400,000 hryvnas. During the first 6 months budget has been over-executed of 1,200,000 hryvnas.

These are excellent indicators as we’re not a union of territorial communities. Elizavetovka tried twice establish “united hromada”, but because of the old-format officials we received two refusals.

Why’s that? Because around 36 million of taxes now flow into the district budget. If Elizavetovka make a Hromada, unites with someone, the old-format officials from the district Councils will simply not have anything to live on. In a simple words – to steal from the state budged.

Officials who came here to work since the first president of Ukraine don’t bother about common people or the infrastructure, and place the personal considerations above an interests of the population. They are only interested in one thing – can they further redistribute state’s financial flows they have no relation at all, for their own sake.