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Sauce de Luna Replaces Cash Bonus With Food Vouchers to Meet Payroll

The voucher swap signals a cash squeeze driven by collapsed local tax payments alongside weaker real transfers.

Overview

  • Sauce de Luna in Entre Ríos replaced a 30,000‑peso non‑salary bonus with a 50,000‑peso food voucher after cash ran short, a move agreed with the municipal union.
  • Base pay stays the same and about 165 contracted or temporary workers can use the vouchers to buy groceries at approved local stores.
  • Mayor Alcides Alderete cited a liquidity crunch driven by 94% nonpayment of local taxes and by court‑ordered account garnishments on municipal accounts.
  • The municipality asked the provincial Secretariat of Municipal Affairs for emergency support and is waiting for a response after warning that shared transfers have lost purchasing power, with Iaraf estimating a 7.4% real drop in coparticipation.
  • Officials present the voucher as a temporary fix for workers’ household budgets, and other small towns in the province have flagged similar stress that could prompt more stopgap pay tools if cash remains tight.