REFORMING THE TERRITORIAL BASIS OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF ITS FINANCIAL SOLVENCY

Abstract

he analysis of the first results of the reform of local governance territorial basis in Ukraine is carried out and achievements of the reform are outlined. It is noted that during 2015 159 combined territorial communities were created in Ukraine; these communities received budgetary autonomy and greater powers in matters of local importance. However, this process slowed down in 2016. At the same time a number of problematic issues came out, which influenced negatively the processes of reforming of local governance and territorial organization of authorities. In particular, authors emphasized difficulties of the reform implementation according to the principle of voluntary association of communities and shortcomings of the acting methodical tools of communities combining. Special attention is paid to the dominance of financial solvency factor while forming combined territorial communities, which downgrades other socially important principles of their creation due to mismatch between current budget system and the tasks to be solved in the process of reforming of administrative and territorial system of the country. Low share of own local budget revenues in the consolidated budget of state and flawed acting mechanisms of state support of territorial communities’ budgets are indicated.
The authors stressed the necessity to deepen legislative, regulative and organizational maintenance of reform and to amend certain provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine, in particular – regarding the principle of communities’ voluntary combining; abandoning the forming of both powerless small communities and communities too large by territory, where the distance between residents and authorities increases; creating in the process of administrative and territorial reform conditions and incentives for self-development of territorial communities and implementation of their social and economic potential, including through further improvement of inter-budget relations and real budget decentralization; introduction of relevant changes to methodical set of instruments regarding the forming of territorial communities.