Trends in Financial Management of Municipalities in Conditions of the Slovak Republic

Abstract

Changes in the socioeconomic conditions of countries initiate modifications in the management of its economic and social processes, which are also followed by conversions in the public administration. At the same time, they are also looking for the concepts of rational organization and effective management of the public administration. The public administration of the Slovak Republic is created by local self-government and regional self-government. Municipalities represent the local self-government bodies. The effective conditions of the municipalities are creating the effective setting of its financing. Until 2004 the financing of municipalities was determined annually by the state budget act and for the municipalities distributed from the state budget a share of the tax of personal income, which consisted of three taxes: tax of personal income, tax of the corporation income and road tax. In 2005 the fiscal decentralization took place in Slovakia as a part of the consolidation of public finances, resulting in a new way of financing municipalities. The basis of the new financing system of municipalities was to determine the tax of personal income as a single share tax, in particular, because the dynamics of the income of this tax was expected to grow even in the medium term. The objective of the paper is to evaluate changes and trends in the financial management of municipalities based on selected fiscal indicators within the period 1993-2015.