Ortigueira approves the guidelines for school supply grants worth 40,000 euros

The Ortigueira City Council has approved the regulatory bases for municipal grants for the acquisition of school materials, aimed at families with students enrolled in the second cycle of early childhood education, primary education, and compulsory secondary education (ESO). The approval was formalized through Mayoral Decree number 2026-1206, dated September 30, 2026, signed by the mayor-president Jose Valentín Calvín Fondevila, with a maximum budget of 40,000 euros. The text is published in the Official Gazette of the Province of A Coruña number 191, dated October 6, 2026, under announcement number 2026/6387.

The grants are public subsidies and will be processed under a competitive bidding regime, with the bases having indefinite validity. The expenditure is authorized against budgetary application 326 48103 22026000579 of the 2026 municipal budget, for a maximum amount of 40,000.00 euros, subject to the existence of adequate and sufficient credit. The declared purpose is to promote equal opportunities in the exercise of the right to education and to alleviate school expenses for family units with lower economic capacity.

The legal framework refers, among other regulations, to Law 38/2003, of November 17, General Law on Subsidies, to Royal Decree 887/2006, to Law 9/2007, of June 13, on Subsidies of Galicia, and to Decree 11/2009. The approval of the bases does not in itself generate economic obligations: annual effectiveness is subject to the approval of the corresponding call for applications, planned for the 2026-2027 academic year.

Nominative vouchers for purchases in municipal establishments

The aid is materialized in a nominative and coded voucher, which is not cash nor a municipal purchase. The beneficiary chooses among the participating establishments, acquires the eligible products, and instructs the Ortigueira City Council to pay the business the actual amount of the purchase, up to the limit of the granted subsidy. The family does not advance the subsidized portion.

The following new products for direct school use, among others, will be eligible for subsidies:

• Notebooks, pads, sheets, and paper.
• Writing, drawing, painting, geometry, and craft materials.
• Folders, binders, school planners, pencil cases, and backpacks.
• Dictionaries, mandatory reading books, and complementary curricular material.
• Basic non-programmable calculators.

Textbooks, electronic devices (computers, tablets, phones), clothing and footwear, toys, shopping vouchers, and used products are excluded.

Family requirements and valuation scale

Beneficiaries may be students registered and effectively residing in the Concello de Ortigueira, enrolled in an authorized center within the municipality —except when the required level or educational attention is not provided there— and integrated into a family unit whose income does not exceed the limit of the call. The limit is calculated by multiplying the annual IPREM by coefficients ranging from 2.2 times for one person to 5.0 times for six, with an increase of 0.3 for each additional person.

The assessment of admitted applications, with a maximum of 15 points, is applied as follows:

• Family income: up to 4 points.
• Family size: 0.5 points per computable person, up to 4.
• Disability: 1 point per person with a degree equal to or greater than 33%, up to 3.
• Unemployment: 1 point for each unemployed parent, guardian, or foster parent, up to 2.
• Single parenthood or absence of a parent: 1 point.
• Large family: 1 point.

Ties will be resolved by lower per capita income, higher number of applicant students in the family unit, higher score in disability and single parenthood and, as a last resort, by a public draw documented in a record.

Bodies, deadlines and processing

The Department of Culture will be the instructing body, responsible for processing applications and issuing the proposal report, while the resolution will correspond to the Local Government Board or the body to which it delegates. The assessment will be carried out by a collegiate commission of a technical nature, with a president, three members, and a secretary with voice but no vote.

The deadline for submitting applications will be set by the call and may not be less than ten business days. The maximum period to resolve and publish is three months from the day following the end of the application period; if this period passes without a resolution, the application will be understood as rejected. The granting will imply the approval of the expenditure commitment for each student and acceptance will be tacit if not waived within ten days from publication.

A Municipal Registry of Adhered Establishments is also created, open and without numerical limit, to which natural persons who are entrepreneurs or legal entities that carry out the retail sale of school materials in a premises open to the public within the municipal district may join. Adhesion does not grant them the status of collaborating entity nor does it allow them to verify the requirements of the families.

The publication of these bases paves the way for the annual call for grants for the 2026-2027 school year, which will specify the credit, the maximum amount per student, and the deadlines. For the families with the fewest resources in Ortigueira, the program represents a direct relief of the start-of-year expenditure and avoids the advance of the subsidized amount, as payment is made directly to the adhered business.

Source: Official Gazette of the Province of A Coruña, number 191, October 6, 2026, Local Administration, pp. 1-14 (official reference: 2026/6387).