engleski

Local Public Finance in Croatia: Overview and Issues

Sub-national governments must be accountable to their citizens if the benefits from decentralized service delivery are to result. The local governments must be responsible for generating much of their own revenues, so that they must answer to their citizenry for the use of funds. Further, information on service levels, budgets, decision making and so forth must be available to the citizens via the media and other means. Some of the findings of this report include: local governments have fragmented during the past five years, leading to an average population size that is small (though far from the smallest) on international standards ; government expenditures and revenues are centralized on international standards ; the appropriate assignment of service delivery functions across governments has yet to be fully accomplished, and the existing system results in considerable ongoing negotiation ; the county governments have a relatively small service delivery role, and have operating structures that lead to confused lines of authority ; the own source revenues of local governments are very limited and local governments rely heavily on shared taxes ; user fees and communal charges are collected, but fail to finance the full cost of many utility services ; direct transfers are low on international standards and could be expanded through a carefully designed formula grant system ; greater reliance on user fees and shared taxes offers the best options for restructuring local revenues and reducing shared taxes ; and the national government has increasingly been mandating local government expenditures, which reduces local government spending flexibility.

Local Public Finance; Croatia

nije evidentirano