Riihimäki City Council granted an additional allocation of 4,6 million euros for land acquisition and education – the youth council will now have a representative on the city government

31.3.2025 News Participate and influence Living in Riihimäki Education and training Vitality Administration Town council Decision making

Chairman's gavel on polished mahogany table. — Photo: Pixabay

At its meeting held on Monday, March 31, 2025, the Riihimäki City Council approved the 2024 Wellbeing Report and allocated an additional allocation of approximately 4,6 million euros for land acquisition and the implementation of the learning support law reform and Finnish as a second language teaching. According to the Wellbeing Report, the well-being of Riihimäki residents has remained unchanged compared to 2023.

Of the additional appropriation granted by the council, approximately 4,4 million euros have been reserved for land acquisition. The Vitality Committee will decide on the land acquisitions to be carried out with the additional appropriation. Approximately 2025 million euros were reserved in the budget for 1,3.

The council allocated the remaining additional appropriation, approximately 0,2 million euros, for the implementation of the legal reform on learning support and for teaching Finnish as a second language. The money used for learning support will be used to create, among other things, four new special education teacher positions. The key objective of the legal reform is to shift the focus of support to early and timely support for students.

The council renewed the administrative rules by approving Silja Nurmi's (sd.) initiative, according to which the city government grants the representative of the youth council the right to speak and be present at the board meetings for the years 2026 and 2027. The right does not apply to confidential matters and is experimental in nature. Nurmi's initiative was supported by Aino-Kaisa Pekonen (left), Hanna Hänninen (left) and Sari Jokinen (green). The council approved the initiative by a vote of 23–20 (0 abstentions).

Instead, the council rejected Eija-Liisa Dahlberg's (Kol.) proposal for the approval of project plans by the council with a vote of 33–9 (1 abstention).

In addition, the city council took note of the regional cooperation agreement between the city of Riihimäki and the municipalities of Hausjärvi, Janakkala and Loppe, as well as the 2024 financial statements. The aim of the regional agreement is to increase joint work and resources to promote business investments and strategic land use planning in business areas from the beginning of 2026. The aim of the cooperation agreement is to create a thousand new jobs in the region by 2030. The aim is also to achieve two significant investments in the region formed by the municipalities annually through cooperation.

According to the information accounts, the city's data protection and information security management is at an established level. Development areas relate in particular to systematic risk management, continuous improvement of information management, and maintaining personnel's data protection and information security expertise.