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.