Local budgets in Ukraine should be taken by local councils before December 25, in accordance with the requirements of article 77 of the Budget code of Ukraine. However, 6 regional centers (Lutsk, Poltava, Rivne, Kherson, Khmelnytsky, Chernivtsi) not coped with this task. Of the regional centers of Ukraine Sumy city budget adopted in 2017 on time and with all the rules, writes UBR.
“Of the 31 settlement, subject to monitoring, only in Sumy budget process was organized at the proper level. That is, not only in compliance with all formal legal requirements, but also with the active involvement of the public. Most of the cities received an average score of transparency in the adoption of budgets”, — said the coordinator of the Public partnership “For transparent local budgets” Anatoly Boyko.
“In Poltava, even it is not known when the estimate is approved-2017. The city government could not give a specific time frame even next year. Already decided to Fund the city’s expenditures according to the budget in 2016,” — said Boyko.
A similar situation exists in Lutsk.
Local authorities often also guilty of the classification of a number of supporting documents. For example, according to the President of the Foundation “open society” Lesya Shevchenko, even in the capital the draft decision on the budget of Kyiv for 2017 were published without any of the necessary additions.
“In particular, for the second year in a row is not available explanation the main managers of budgetary funds. Even in our formal request, the city government has not submitted this document, stating that the Budget code does not define what form should be available this document”, — said Shevchenko.
The same applies to meeting budget targets.
“Treasury has about 30 of the reporting forms, allowing to judge the implementation of the state budget. As for local budgets, here largely have to rely on luck. Someone posts, someone there, someone is late,” — said a macroeconomist, Chairman of the Ukrainian society of economic freedoms (UEFF) Marian zablocki.
But the worst things in terms of consultation of authorities with citizens on the draft budget. So, in 11 cities such consultations were not carried out formally. And the results of the discussion were made public only in five cities: Vinnytsia, Sumy, Chernivtsi, Voznesensk and Chuguev.
Budget holes
Meanwhile, in Ukraine next year will be implemented the so-called budget participation. That is when a small portion of local development budget (no more than 5%) is allocated for specific projects proposed by local residents. For example, in Kiev for these purposes is allocated only UAH 50 million, and the entire city budget (including the development budget) is 38 billion.
The idea of fiscal decentralization is to give additional resources to the regions to solve their pressing problems. This is done through so-called development budgets where funds are budgeted for the construction and repair of roads, utilities, etc.
“When the budget should involve the public. We are working in this direction. This software and information exchange with the public so they could see what interested citizens. Because the individual desires a particular person may not represent the views of the community”, — said the analyst of the Association of cities of Ukraine Igor Onischuk.
Budget-2017: main risks
According to experts, the state Budget-2017 envisages that most of the additional revenues of local budgets will go to funding education and medicine.
“For example, the budget of the city Ukrainka, Kiev region in 2017 halved, compared with the current due to the costs of education and medicine. This includes utility bills, payment of technical personnel (laboratory assistants, cooks), providing educational and therapeutic processes”, — says Igor Onischuk.
According to him, not every budget can withstand such expenses. And the government meanwhile guarantee the quality of education and care for all Ukrainians. “It was impossible to transfer to the local level of government spending without a source of funding. Medical and education subventions is not always enough and local budgets have approximately 20% to pay,” — says the Association of Ukrainian cities.
This also includes the funding of vocational schools and the payment of beneficiaries, and many other government spending, devolved to the local level.
Many unresolved issues remain with the unified territorial communities. Elections of local self-government bodies of such communities were held from 11 to 18 December and from 1 January they should move to direct inter-budgetary relations, taking their budgets. The result will be a lot of confusion, bordering on collapse of financing in such communities.
