Local budget transparency
(November 2022 – April 2023)

As it is not always easy to determine whether a budget document is published on the official websites of counties, cities and municipalities, the level of transparency was measured according to the following criteria:

• Enacted budget – if published on a regional/local government unit’s website or if there is a clearly stated direct link to a website containing that document. If published in a regional/local government unit’s official gazette, it is deemed to be published only if there is a clearly stated direct link to this particular document (e.g. ‘the 2023 budget’) to the official gazette in which it can be found on the regional/local government unit’s website. Otherwise, the document is not deemed to be published on the regional/local government unit’s website. Such a decision was taken in response to the frequently inadequate searchability of official gazettes.
• Budget proposal – if a document bearing this title is published on a regional/local government unit's website, if it is published on the same website as a 'draft budget proposal', if it is published as part of materials for a meeting, or if there is a clearly stated direct link to a website containing that document.
• Mid-year and year-end reports –if published on a regional/local government unit’s website under those titles, or as proposals for (drafts of) mid-year/year-end budget reports, as part of materials for a meeting, or if there is a clearly stated direct link to the websites containing such documents. If published in a regional/local government unit’s official gazette, they are deemed to be published only if there is a clearly stated direct link on the regional/local government unit’s website to these particular documents (e.g. ‘the 2022 mid-year report’), or the official gazette in which they can be found.
• Citizens budget – if any kind of simplified budget documents, intended for citizens, has been published on a regional/local government unit’s website (e.g. “budgets in a nutshell”, presentations, guides or brochures), or if there is a clearly stated direct link to the websites containing such documents.

Publication of the 2021 year-end and 2022 mid-year reports was examined from 1 November 2022 to 15 January 2023, and publication of the budget proposal, enacted budget and citizens budget for 2023, from 1 February to 18 April 2023. Before that, on 4 October 2022, an e-mail message was sent to all regional/local government units, informing them of the time and manner of examining their respective websites.

This analysis involved only the documents available on the websites of regional/local units in the specified research periods, i.e. on the day of the search of their website.

Documents published subsequently are deemed not to have been published. The observed periods were already generous for regional/local government units, as the websites were assessed well after the dates when the budget documents were required to have been produced. If we found the document in one place, we didn't look any further. We evaluate a particular document according to its condition in the place where we first found it. There is a possibility that a more detailed document has been published elsewhere, but we believe that the same complete budget documents should be published at all places. Also, there is a possibility that the researchers did not find a document even though it was published, but this means that even citizens would have a hard time finding them because they were not highlighted well enough.

According to Article 10 of the Act on the Right of Access to Information, public authorities are required to publish on their official websites, in an easily searchable manner and in a machine-readable format among other things, annual plans, work reports, financial reports and other relevant documents relating to their respective scopes of activity, data on the sources of financing, the budget, financial plan or any other relevant document showing the public authorities' revenues and expenditures, as well as data and reports on the execution of the budget, financial plan or another relevant document.

Article 12 of the old Budget Act says that regional/local government units must publish, in their official gazettes, their respective budgets and budget projections, decisions on interim financing, amendments to the budgets, as well as the general and specific part of their year-end and mid-year reports. This article states that the mid-year and year-end reports, as well as the annual financial reports, must be published on the regional/local government units’ official websites. According to Article 144 of the new Budget Act, which was enforced on 1 January 2022, the budget and amendments to the budget, the decision on temporary financing and the mid-year and year-end reports must be published on the websites of regional/local units, as well as citizens budget relating to budget, amendments to the budget and the mid-year and year-end reports. Therefore, in this research cycle, the following documents are considered legally obligatory for publication on the regional/local government units’ official websites: year-end and mid-year reports, enacted budget and citizens budget.

Furthermore, since 2013, the Ministry of Finance, recommends that regional/local government units, in accordance with the Action Plan of the Open Government Partnership, publish on their official websites: a budget proposal with projections that the mayor, municipality head, or prefect submits to the representative body for adoption (no later than November 15 of the current year, as prescribed by the Budget Act); budget with projections adopted by the representative body; proposal of the mid-year and year-end report when the mayor, municipality head, or prefect submits it to the representative body, and citizens budget.

It also recommends that all materials related to the budget and its revisions should be published in MS Word and Excel format, and proposes a unique format for citizens budget to be produced along with the regional/local government units' budgets.

Here you can get all the materials related to the presentation of the local government units' budget transparency results: November 2020 – April 2021.

• IPF Notes
• Statical map of local units
• Statical map of counties

The Institute of Public Finance regularly analyses the budget transparency of counties, cities and municipalities.

The first and second research cycles (2013 and 2014) included all counties and cities and a sample of 100 municipalities (see Newsletters No. 81 and 87). Subsequent research cycles (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022) included all 576 local government units (see Newsletters No. 97, 107, 112, 115, 117 and 119, and IPF Notes No. 119 and 126).