LOCAL GOVERNMENT FUNDING IN TURKEY


The state and local governments play important roles in practicing public services. The financial structure of local governments is one of the most crucial factors in determining the quality and size of the services provided. Municipalities need more financial resources due to the increasing demand for infrastructure and superstructure services undertaken by municipalities, which have a crucial role in the provision of local services. In order to practice these services effectively and efficiently, they need to have a financially robust structure. This study aims to examine the funding resources of local governments and also to analyze the revenues of local government units over the period from 2015 to 2017 by utilizing the revenue realization figures of the local governments published by the General Directorate of Accounting. The revenues of local government units are classified as self-revenues, transfers made from the central budget and borrowings, and the structural composition of local government units in Turkey are examined separately in the study. As a result of the study, although the funding resources of local governments have increased over the years, it is seen that especially their self-revenues are not sufficient, nearly half of their total revenues are composed of the shares taken from the central budget and they encountered with the borrowing option due to income statement income imbalance. Self-revenues of local governments, the transfers made by the central authorities and total debt amounted to 63 billion TL, 60.3 billion TL, and 107.6 billion TL in Turkey as of 2017, respectively. As can be seen, the self-revenues and transfers made by the central authority are almost at equal levels. This renders the autonomy of local governments disputable. It is seen that local governments, which do not have adequate budgets, are subject to a heavy debt burden. Legitimate regulations and borrowing policies need to be rearranged.


Keywords


local governments, funding, self-revenue, budget, debt, municipality

Author : Nurettin ÜNSAL -Taner DEMİRKOL
Number of pages: 1107-1133
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.29228/TurkishStudies.24818
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Turkish Studies-Economics,Finance,Politics
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