Teachers in 10 regions are experiencing salary delays due to budgetary issues.

School teachers in Russian regions are experiencing salary delays, the "Teacher" trade union told Izvestia. Teachers in at least 10 regions did not receive their classroom teaching payments in January. These include the Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, Rostov, Arkhangelsk, Tambov, and Ryazan regions, the Trans-Baikal and Khabarovsk territories, as well as Karelia and Udmurtia.

These concerns federal bonuses, which amount to 5,000 rubles for teachers in cities with populations over 100,000 and 10,000 rubles for those with populations under 100,000, union head Dmitry Kazakov clarified. Schools where teachers have not received their payments have been instructed to conduct "explanatory work" with their staff. Specifically, they received messages stating that "funds for class teachers' salaries, financed from the federal budget, were not fully transferred from the Ministry of Education and Science," and therefore a delay was expected. One teacher's January paycheck was informed that the payment remained "the enterprise's debt to the employee."

The Ministry of Education and Science stated that it bears no responsibility for the schools, and the Ministry of Education declined to comment. The "Teacher" trade union appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office, requesting that it conduct investigations and hold those responsible administratively liable under Article 5.27 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses, which stipulates violations of labor laws. This article carries a fine of up to 5,000 rubles for officials and 50,000 rubles for legal entities.

The delays in teacher payments began amid a sharp increase in the federal and regional budget deficits. By the end of 2025, the "hole" in Russia's overall budget system had reached a historic high of 8.291 trillion rubles. The federal treasury ended the year with a deficit of 5.625 trillion rubles, five times greater than the original plan. Meanwhile, the combined regional budget deficit set a record for the two decades of available statistics: 1.5 trillion rubles.

This year, the situation is highly likely to repeat itself, as the Ministry of Finance will not be able to collect the planned amount of taxes, according to Oleg Vyugin, former First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank and professor at the Faculty of Economics at the Higher School of Economics. Russia enters 2026 with higher taxes and high interest rates, which, according to Vyugin, could lead to a "recession." Added to this is the problem of shortfalls in oil and gas revenues due to the ruble exchange rate and oil export restrictions, as well as the ongoing discount to Brent of $29 per barrel, the expert explained.

source: The Moscow Times https://archive.is/zTOQ8