'The value of a budget is fulfilled only when people's lives change'
Lee emphasizes livelihood-centered fiscal management ahead of Seoul city and education budget reviews
Cutting routine spending to focus on welfare and education; improving fiscal efficiency and policy effectiveness
Addressing cost disparities in funeral home reusable-container program; easing public inconvenience from smart remote meter reading
Securing 7.3 billion won for school facility upgrades in Dongdaemun-gu; channeling energy into long-pending local projects
Budget size alone does not guarantee policy results. What matters is where limited public funds go and what tangible difference they make in people's daily lives. As welfare demand grows and fiscal pressures mount, setting clear spending priorities and maximizing the real-world impact of policy has emerged as a defining challenge for local councils.
Lee Eui-an, chair of the Seoul Metropolitan Council's Budget and Policy Committee and a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker representing Dongdaemun District 3, has placed "a budget that changes citizens' lives" at the center of legislative work. Rather than simply securing funds, Lee says the goal is to rigorously verify the necessity and effectiveness of each project and translate that scrutiny into outcomes residents can actually feel. In reviewing the 2027 budgets for the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, Lee plans to concentrate on stabilizing livelihoods, improving school environments and closing gaps in the welfare safety net.
'Cut routine spending, focus on livelihoods' — from everyday issues to long-pending local projects
"The most important standard is a budget that looks after residents who are struggling," Lee said. "I will take a hard look at unnecessary spending that exists merely for appearances or out of habit, and make sure the money goes toward creating safe school environments for children and caring for neighbors in need."
The direction Lee has set for fiscal management is clear: rather than expanding the overall budget, the priority is improving the rationality of allocation and the accountability of execution. With rising prices and an economic slowdown weighing on small-business owners and ordinary citizens, Lee believes public funds should be directed first to projects that directly affect people's daily lives.
Lee said addressing growing welfare demand requires a close examination of the structure of existing fiscal programs. Projects with overlapping objectives or insufficient results relative to their budgets should be reorganized, and the savings redirected to areas where support is most urgently needed.
Post-execution performance management is another priority. Lee's position is that oversight must go beyond confirming whether a planned budget was spent as intended — it must also verify whether the intended benefits actually reached the people the policy was meant to help. The approach aims to secure both fiscal efficiency and public value at the same time.
This policy stance is also taking concrete shape in environmental programs closely tied to daily life.
One prominent example is the program to expand the use of reusable containers at funeral homes. Designed to reduce single-use plastics, the initiative achieved a reduction of 239 metric tons of waste — but it also exposed a new problem: cost-sharing arrangements vary from hospital to hospital and funeral home to funeral home, resulting in unequal financial burdens on bereaved families.
Lee's view is that even when a program delivers strong environmental results, public trust is hard to sustain if the costs imposed on users are distributed unfairly.
Lee plans to establish consistent cost-sharing standards for reusable-container use, ease the financial burden on bereaved families and develop a phased rollout plan that allows the program to expand on a stable footing — pursuing the twin goals of environmental protection and reduced public burden at the same time.
On the replacement of aging water meters and the rollout of smart remote meter-reading technology, Lee stressed that administrative care matters just as much as technical efficiency.
Replacing old meters and introducing remote-reading technology are necessary steps to prevent water leaks and ensure accurate billing. However, water shutoffs during construction and inadequate advance notice can cause inconvenience and anxiety for residents.
Lee said construction schedules and planned shutoffs must be communicated well in advance, and that more careful outreach is needed for residents who may have difficulty receiving information — including elderly people and single-person households. Lee also plans to thoroughly review post-installation management systems to ensure that malfunctions or errors in remote-reading devices do not result in incorrect charges.
In Lee's home district of Dongdaemun-gu, legislative achievements are taking shape around improvements to educational environments and everyday infrastructure.
Lee secured about 7.3 billion won ($5.47 million) to upgrade facilities at seven schools in the district, with a focus on renovating aging educational infrastructure and improving conditions so students can learn and spend their days in safer, more comfortable surroundings.
Lee has also been steadily working to improve green spaces closely tied to residents' daily lives, upgrading the environment at major local parks — including Baebongsan and Dapsimni and Gandeme parks — to expand areas where residents can rest and enjoy leisure time.
Going forward, Lee plans to channel energy into achieving visible progress on long-pending local projects: an underground parking lot and library at Gandeme Park, and the Myeonmok Line transit extension. Improved transport access and expanded everyday amenities are central to residents' quality of life, Lee said, and the plan is to personally monitor problems that arise during project implementation and maintain ongoing consultations with relevant agencies.
Lee also stressed that securing a budget cannot be the final measure of legislative success. A policy's meaning is only fulfilled, Lee said, when the funds obtained translate into actual projects and those projects lead to real improvements in residents' living conditions.
Underlying this approach to legislative work is a field-first political philosophy. Lee said that experience accumulated since serving as a district council member — visiting communities across the area, listening to residents and working to resolve everyday inconveniences — has become an important benchmark for policy judgment.
Even when administrative procedures or budget constraints make it impossible to resolve an issue immediately, Lee said it is a local lawmaker's responsibility to explain the situation transparently to residents and find workable alternatives.
"The answer to my politics has always been out in the neighborhood," Lee said. "Setting aside party considerations and calculations, I will give everything I have to make residents' lives even a little easier. I want to be a city council member who shows results through action rather than words."
7toy7@heraldcorp.com
