The municipal group EH Bildu has denounced the collection of allowances by deputy mayors «knowing that the law was being broken» over the past year in the Zumarraga City Council. The party states that the two non-liberated deputy mayors have each collected more than 2,000 euros for this concept, despite «everyone knowing for a year that these allowances were contrary to the law». A recent report by the new municipal comptroller indicates that these allowances are «irregular and must cease to be collected».

When consulted about this information, the mayor, Mikel Serrano, responded that «EH Bildu is once again making a fallacious accusation regarding a matter of form».

EH Bildu refers back to a Plenary session held in April 2025. In that session, a modification of the allowances paid to councilors who chair the various City Council commissions was discussed, following an audit by the Basque Court of Auditors. The audit indicated that council members could not collect allowances for holding a position, but rather that allowances should be tied to attendance at a body. In other words, one cannot collect an allowance for «being», but one can for «attending».

The sovereignist group recalled that in that Plenary session, the concept of this allowance was approved to be modified, so that councilors chairing commissions who were not liberated would receive an allowance of 120 euros for attending commissions and would stop receiving it monthly as a concept of their position. EH Bildu denounced that the non-liberated deputy mayors were in the same situation, receiving 175 euros per month for their position, without this allowance being linked to attendance at any body. «No one in that plenary was able to explain the difference between the situation of the commission chairs and the deputy mayors. Consequently, it became crystal clear that the deputy mayors' allowances were also contrary to the law», they state.

The new comptroller's report, a year later, states that these deputy mayor allowances are irregular and must cease to be collected. EH Bildu claims that, with the same arguments presented a year ago, the municipal comptroller's office has eliminated these allowances. Therefore, in the past year, the two non-liberated deputy mayors have each received more than 2,000 euros, despite «everyone knowing for a year that these allowances were contrary to the law».

The group also recalls that the governing team, formed by the PSE and PNV, appointed three non-liberated councilors as commission chairs so that they could collect these allowances, as liberated councilors are not entitled to them. EH Bildu has voted against these decisions in the two plenary sessions where allowances have been established during this legislature.

Finally, EH Bildu reminds that Zumarraga has the maximum number of deputy mayors permitted by law, which is four, and that two of them are not liberated.

Mayor Mikel Serrano denies that the Basque Court of Auditors ever issued any criteria against this collection of deputy mayor allowances, nor that the municipal secretariat and comptroller's office have indicated otherwise to date. According to the mayor, in response to the new comptroller's report, the allowances will be adjusted to continue remunerating the greater responsibility of a deputy mayor compared to other councilors, «a logic and practice that is also followed in other city councils». «The allowance, which until now has been collected under one concept, would have continued to be collected and will continue to be collected adjusted to the new guidelines», he maintains.

For its part, EH Bildu states that it will continue with the task of scrutinizing the governing team's activities entrusted to it by the citizens, «with rigor and seriousness, critical but constructive, with a vocation for public service towards all Zumarragans».