Argentine provinces spend vast amounts on maintaining their legislative bodies. According to a report by Fundación Libertad, on average, 86% of legislative spending is allocated to personnel, reflecting 'oversized structures' compared to the size of the legislatures. In absolute terms, provinces will allocate 1.42 trillion pesos to their legislatures in 2025. The provinces with the highest costs per legislator are Tucumán (2.735 million pesos), Buenos Aires Province (2.293 million pesos), Chaco (2.492 million pesos), and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (2.661 million pesos). Conversely, the lowest figures are recorded in Santiago del Estero (138 million pesos) and San Luis (174 million pesos). Provinces like Santa Cruz, Río Negro, and Corrientes allocate over 95% of their legislative budgets to personnel, whereas in San Luis and Neuquén, this figure is 73.9% and 75.7%, respectively. On average, each legislator has 26 employees, but in Corrientes, this number rises to 72. Compared to Spain, Argentina spends three times more per legislator and 6.4 times more as a proportion of its budget. There is significant disparity in spending within the country: a legislator in Chaco costs twice as much as one in Misiones and 2.5 times more than in Santa Fe, which in turn spends four times more than Córdoba. Some provinces, such as Tucumán (3.9%), Catamarca (2.7%), and Corrientes (2.1%), far exceed the average of 1.34% of provincial budgets allocated to legislatures. 'This implies that a legislator in Tucumán costs six times more than one in Jujuy and almost 20 times more than one in Santiago del Estero,' the report states. Fundación Libertad argues that this data highlights the need to 'review and reduce provincial political spending'.
