In the literature on the subject of economy there are three functions of public finance \ndescribed: stabilazing, redistributing and allocating. Effectiveness of realization of the abovementioned \nfunctions depends to a large extent on the political system of a given country, \nespecially on the degree to which it is decentralized. In the article the author embarks on an \nattempt to identify the advantages and disadvantages of decentralization of particular public \nfinance functions and in effect to show which of the functions can be more effectively realized \nby the central authorities and which of them can be decentralized that is transfered to the \nlocal authorities.
The Baltic countries’ local governments have been functioned during the last decade in a permanently changing environment. Like other transition countries, they inherited from the past extremely centralized administrative system. Along with radical reforms, administrative system was decentralized and various functions were devolved from central to lower levels of government. Despite that, municipalities are still fiscally strongly dependent from central authorities. Often their fiscal capacity is not adequate to act in accordance with functions stipulated by laws. Many local governments’ revenues from taxes and user-charges are insufficient to finance efficiently their expenditures. Disparities in municipalities’ fiscal situation are correlated with unbalanced regional growth, social degradation in the low-income regions and growing differentiation by municipalities’ residents on access to education and healthcare. Membership of the European Union brings new tasks and responsibilities for the Baltic local governments. Municipalities should increase their economic sustainability and enhance administrative capacity to explore EU accession funds and implement EU policies. Considering the above-mentioned problems, the paper focuses on current fiscal situation of local governments in the Baltic countries. The main interest is to analyze local municipalities’ revenue level and structure, expenditure composition and fiscal autonomy conditions
The principles of unity and complexity introduced into the Polish State budget in 1951 are no longer fully observed. In particular, certain funds administered by local councils have appeared gradually in the last years, on the basis of the budget law of 1958 which admitted making some budget expenses dependent on definite budget revenues. Moreover, some funds have been created outside the local budgets. These deserve special attention as a new phenomenon which becomes increasingly important for the local councils activities and especially for councils of the lowest level. The development of decentralized funds seems to be desirable firstly in the economic micro-regions, such as villages and towns, in order to accelerate their development. The augmentation of the role of decentralized funds would also be advisable in counties and provinces provided they constitute regions with specific economic structure. Decentralized funds should be first of all used to finance local investments, the more so that this would be in accordance with the main destination of the funds already administered by local councils. In this way, decentralized funds could in the future be transformed into the local investment budgets. The considerable development of decentralized funds in this country, in particular of those of the lowest level of local administration, seems, moreover, to prove that local budgets at this level, which since 1951 have been incorporated into the State budget, are not fully adequate for financing local councils activities. This suggests that a reform of local budgets of the lowest level is advisable, which would make their administration more similar to that of decentralized funds. The author considers in detail the perspectives and conditions of s'uch a reform of the local budgets of the lowest level, as well as the prospects and conditions of further development of the decentralized funds if no budget reform takes place. He discusses especially the links between decentralized funds and local budgets in this last case. The other subject of the author's consideration is the advisability of financing the local councils activities by bank credit or by credit granted by central funds administered by budget authorities