Municipal Reform in Chuvashia

Abstract

Local self-government, defined as a structure of government bodies that directly interacts with the population to resolve issues of local importance, has its own systemic problem areas and shortcomings. The municipal reform for the consolidation of municipalities is being carried out unevenly in Russia, which determines the relevance of the topic and requires studying the first results achieved by the regions that carried out these measures on their territories. The purpose of the paper to study the economic, social and managerial results of the first year of modern municipal reform using the example of the Chuvash Republic. Materials and methods. The main research method was a structural-dynamic analysis of budget indicators and those of socio-economic development of the Chuvash Republic according to data from municipal administrations and the territorial body of the Federal State Statistics Service for the Chuvash Republic. In order to achieve the set goals, an original approach to the analysis of the first results of the municipal reform has been developed. It consists of reducing the budget indicators of the pre-reform consolidated budgets of municipal districts and comparing them with similar indicators of the post-reform municipal districts. Results. It has been established that the dynamics of income, expenses and financial results of execution by the budget of the municipal districts of the Chuvash Republic in 2023 are multidirectional and determined mainly by two factors: comparable growth rates of personal income tax and differentiated volumes and growth rates of gratuitous receipts. Labor costs largely depend on the maximum number of municipal employees regulated by law, and in relative terms they do not differ across municipalities. Municipalities demonstrate stability in quantitative indicators, however, the latter being largely determined by demographic processes in the region, and since the healthcare sector falls under the jurisdiction of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, the real sphere of influence of local authorities on the quality of life in municipalities is very limited. Conclusions. In general, municipal reform cannot help reverse the existing trends in socio-economic development due to the insignificance of the ongoing changes compared to those at the level of the Federation and its subjects. The first results of the municipal reform do not indicate a real reduction in administrative and management costs due to the maintenance of settlement administrations and their municipal employees. The direct result of the first year of the reform is the creation of the municipal district’s own budget, which became the basis for the concentration of budgetary funds and budgetary powers in the municipal administrative center. The process of releasing municipal employees in rural settlements may contribute to an increase in the unemployment rate at the regional level, which requires additional personnel policy measures.