Kainuu council must redo eight-hour meeting due to procedural error

The Kainuu regional council must reconvene to re-examine most of the agenda items decided in an eight-hour meeting on 8 June after the doors to the public session were locked prematurely, rendering all decisions made after 16:00 that day invalid.

Nearly a dozen items, including the region’s multi-year restructuring programme, must be reprocessed. The council’s board addressed the issue in its meeting on Monday.

Meanwhile, the regional executive board has approved planning guidelines for next year’s budget. Funding for the wellbeing services county is projected to rise by about 0.5%, while operating costs are expected to increase by 3.4%.

Sami Mäenpää, director of the Kainuu wellbeing services county, stated that the financial situation “has certainly become clear to everyone” and that immediate cost-cutting measures are needed alongside structural adjustments.

“Decision-making and implementation capacity are now critical,” Mäenpää said in a press release.