Sofia Municipality to Cut 50 Jobs in Municipal Revenue Directorate, Including Pregnant Employee, Councillor Says

Sofia Municipality is laying off 50 employees from the Municipal Revenue Directorate, independent municipal councillor Vanya Grigorova said at a briefing at the Sofia Municipal Council on January 29.

On Tuesday, Sofia Municipality announced that it was introducing a new management structure, which will come into force on 1 February 2026. The municipality said the reform would not increase the size of the administration and would involve only minimal cuts – under 5% – mainly in the Municipal Revenues Directorate, as a result of the digitalisation of services.

However, Grigorova said today that the impact would be far more serious. She noted that Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev had proposed changes to the municipal structure several times, which were not approved by the council.

“In all those cases I voted in favour, so that there would be no excuse that the work of the council was being deliberately obstructed,” she said. “It now turns out that the results, even before the new structure has come into force, are extremely harmful and come at a very high social cost.”

According to her, the claim that staff cuts amount to only 5% is misleading. In the Municipal Revenues Directorate alone, reductions reach 20%.

“About 50 employees from the very administration that generates the revenues needed for the functioning of the capital are being dismissed,” she said. “People who are just months away from retirement and pregnant women are being laid off from one day to the next. This is prohibited both by the Civil Servants Act and by the Labour Code.”

Grigorova stressed that over the past year the Municipal Revenues Directorate had generated nearly 100 million leva more in revenue. Its work goes beyond collecting local taxes and fees. The directorate processes around one million cases annually, including declarations, certificates, tax valuations, fines from the City Mobility Centre and the Sofia Inspectorate.

“All of this, which the mayor boasts about, is done by municipal employees, who are also civil servants,” she said.

She cited a specific case in the Slatina district, where an employee of the Municipal Revenues Directorate, a woman in advanced pregnancy, had been dismissed “from today for tomorrow”.

“No one has the right to dismiss a pregnant woman,” Grigorova said.

She described it as unacceptable that 50 employees from Municipal Revenues were being laid off while, at the same time, a new PR and marketing department with 11 staff was being created.

“I do not underestimate the role of PR professionals at Sofia Municipality,” she added, “but 11 people already looks as if someone is setting up a troll farm inside City Hall.”

One of the dismissed employees, Elizabet Asenova, told journalists at the Sofia Municipal Council that on 27 January she had gone to work as usual and around midday was dismissed without notice by the Human Resources department.