Gokseong-gun repeats excessive estimates of entrance fee revenue for Seomjingang Train Village… Revenue shortfall for 3 consecutive years

(Gwangju, Jeollanam-do = Yonhap News) Reporter Park Cheol-hong = Paid visitors and admission fee revenue at Seomjingang Train Village, a representative tourist destination in Gokseong-gun, Gwangju, Jeollanam-do, have been decreasing for the past three years and have fallen below the original revenue forecast every year, but the county has repeatedly made excessive revenue estimates by setting admission fee revenue higher than actual revenue, causing controversy.

According to data submitted by Gokseong-gun to Yonhap News on the 13th, the county expected the train village entrance fee revenue to be 3.82 billion won in 2023, but the actual revenue was only 2.52 billion won, a difference of about 1.3 billion won.

Although 3.77 billion won was expected in 2024, the actual income was 2.38 billion won, which was 1.39 billion won less than the forecast.

Last year, the original revenue forecast was lowered to 2.97 billion won, but in reality, 2.42 billion won was collected, which was again 550 million won less than expected, and the original revenue forecast has not been achieved once in the past three years.

As the lack of revenue continued, general accounting resources were repeatedly invested in the special accounting for the train village project.

The general accounting deposit is a total of 1.72 billion won over three years, including 200 million won in 2023, 920 million won in 2024, and 600 million won last year.

Despite this situation, Gokseong-gun set aside 3.06 billion won in revenue from entrance fees for the train village this year.

This is an increase of 630 million won, or 26.2%, from last year’s actual entrance fee revenue of 2.42 billion won.

Considering that the actual admission fee revenue for the past three years has remained in the 2.3 to 2.5 billion won range and has been below the original forecast every year, there are concerns that this year's tax revenue may have been overestimated as well.

The slump in admission fee revenue is also visible in the trend of paid admissions.

The number of paid visitors to Train Village decreased by 31,349 (5.8%) from 537,663 in 2023 to 506,314 in 2024.

Last year, the number was 514,878, an increase of 8,564 (1.7%) from the previous year, but compared to 2023, it was still 22,785 (4.2%) fewer.

Actual admission fee revenue also decreased from 2.52 billion won in 2023 to 2.38 billion won in 2024, and only increased slightly to 2.42 billion won last year.

It appears that Gokseong-gun's excessive revenue estimates are intended to avoid adjusting expenditures due to insufficient revenue and to maintain the originally planned projects and financial scale.

However, it is pointed out that local governments' inflated tax revenue estimates can ultimately lead to revenue deficits and reduce budget stability and reliability of financial management.

There are also voices coming from inside and outside of Gokseong-gun that the situation may continue to depend on reserve funds or general account transfers to make up for insufficient financial resources.

Gokseong-gun explained that it raised the entrance fee revenue by saying, "Considering the size of the expenditure budget for the special account for the train village project, we reflected the expectation of the entrance fee income, which accounts for the largest proportion of the revenue budget."

The reason why it is difficult to reduce expenditures despite the decrease in admission fee revenue is that "50% of the special accounting expenditures are labor costs and 37% are current expenses, which are mostly basic maintenance costs," he said.