When talking about the budget, especially that of the local government, it is not always easy to understand. Especially for ordinary citizens, who are not equipped with economic notions and principles. It is the duty of the municipalities to make the budget understandable for their citizens, to share it with the citizens, giving them the appropriate information about the income, or how much tax and fee they will pay; with expenses or where their money will be used, with investments that are felt directly in the community or with debts, which have become one of the main concerns of the local government today.
"The municipal budget is not just a number, figure or arithmetic. The budget is a process, it is politics, it is decision-making, it is a citizens' budget. And as such it should be designed to present key local public finance information to a simple general audience. From what I have monitored the municipal budgets, I think they should be written in simple language, to include visual elements, to be read and understood by any citizen and not just by specialists and implementers, but by the beneficiaries", explains Agron Haxhimali, local government expert.
The lack of public, open and detailed consultations with citizens, just as the law provides, is the main reason that according to Artan Shkëmbi, an expert on local government, citizens are not informed about the budget nor about its main indicators, thus not having basic notions such as income and expenses.
"If the budgets are consulted, then they are understood by the citizens. If it is not consulted and they are simply tables presented at the meeting of the Municipal Council, these tables are not understood even by the councilors and not by the citizens. What usually happens today with municipalities is that there is no public consultation or very little is done, in some meetings where the citizens do not speak, but only the leaders of the municipalities, and on the other hand, at the Council meeting, some tables are presented, which, in addition to the members of the Commission of Economy, the rest of the councilors do not understand and formally vote for them", explains Shkëmbi.
The information to explain the detailed data of the budget, for which citizens are made aware to pay taxes and then to ask the local elected officials to account for how they are used, is missing. Municipalities do not prepare and distribute brochures with this information, nor publish them on their official websites, to make transparency with their citizens.
"Budget transparency is defined as the full disclosure of all relevant fiscal information in a timely and systematic manner. OECD member countries are at the forefront of budget transparency practices. Municipalities have obligations to make budget transparent, but not only that. For the current year, it is difficult to find the draft budgets on their websites and social media. When the text is not simply posted online, the preparation of brochures seems impossible", says Haxhimali.
The same concern is shared by expert Artan Shkëmbi. According to him, a bad tradition is being created, where local elected officials start public consultations on the budget without having the draft budget ready. This makes the consultations formal and not at all efficient or in the function of the citizens. "There are no explanatory brochures to be presented by the municipalities. Even if they do not have the financial means to print, publish and distribute brochures in the relevant areas, today technology makes it possible for information to be given through social networks or the official websites of municipalities.
If you check the websites of the municipalities today, you will find very little information provided by the municipalities regarding the draft budgets. So, what has become a bad tradition of municipalities today is that the consultation process begins without having a draft.
Normally, we should have a draft budget and based on the draft budget, the process of consulting and informing the community would begin. "Today, municipalities hold meetings with citizens, publish photos of mayors with residents, but do not publish information about the draft budget", declares Shkëmbi.
Not having information about the budget, citizens find it almost impossible to know its main indicators, such as income. Not knowing what to pay for, it is normal for there to be resistance from a part of them to repay the obligations. Simply put, the collection of the cleaning fee and the revenue from this fee goes towards cleaning the city. If we collect lighting fees, these should go towards lighting or improving the lighting issue. The revenues that come from the state budget, as well as from citizens' taxes, should go to staff salaries, other administrative expenses and investments. While the revenues that come from the infrastructure impact tax, that is, from construction permits, should in principle go to infrastructure investments.
"Regarding income and investments, the municipalities have not yet understood and even less have the citizens understood that the income of the municipalities is based on income from the government, from taxes and fees. The orientation must be clear once for the municipalities, in order for them to explain to the citizens that the income from the fees is related to the relevant services", explains Shkëmbi.
As for the expert Agron Haxhimali, this is the most delicate part. "The municipality's income is not only taxes and fees, for which the citizens have more or less a level of culture. But here what is not clear to the citizens are other revenues that go to the coffers of the municipalities, which directly or indirectly, again burden the citizens. E.g., infrastructure impact tax, public space occupancy charges, transaction revenue, asset rental revenue, enterprise benefits, etc. This is a problem, even in the reports, some of these sources are not mentioned", he says.
The income that citizens pay must be translated into investments. But their concept of community is also foreign. This is even though the investments should be felt directly by them, since it is about local investments. Again the numbers are missing. There is also a lack of explanations from local elected officials on where taxpayers' money should be used.
"The part related to investments is the part that must be consulted with citizens and that citizens must understand and make decisions. We are talking about budget figures, which even the citizens themselves are surprised by, since they are annual budgets of 3 million euros per year, 10 million euros per year, 30 million euros per year, 50 million euros per year.
But in fact, only a maximum of 10% of them is related to investments, since about 90-95% of the budget is contracted and has to do with employee salaries, cleaning services, cleaning companies, school maintenance, heating in schools etc. In fact, the figure that should be consulted and published is very small and could be understood by the citizens, if it were oriented in this direction.
So, the municipality has approved the list of priorities and it would be enough to clarify this very thing before the citizens. These are our priorities, you can add, this is the money we have available and ask the citizens where you want this money to be invested. So, we have a total of 1 million euros for investments, we have planned 7 projects, add your thoughts and show how you would distribute this fund and these projects", argues Artan Shkëmbi.
The same applies to municipal debt. Another concept that is little or not at all known by the citizens, some of whom learned about the debt problems from the media, where the news of the bankruptcy of two municipalities in the country, Vora and Kavaja, was given.
"If we look at the social media of the 61 municipalities, it is difficult to find the total value of the debt and not who it belongs to and what this debt represents. No details about these data are available to the public, but even the City Council and the administration themselves do not know about this issue. A small group, the mayor, the chief of finance or a handful of people at the head of the municipalities have knowledge about the debt. Quite simply, the municipalities should make it public and update the changes every month", Agron Haxhimali declares.
As for the expert Artan Shkëmbi, the municipalities should explain to the citizens the issue of debt, which happens to every municipality in the world and is not worrisome if it is not neglected and carried over for many years.
"Each municipality will create a debt every year. If the municipality's income is realized 70%, then 30% is an arrears that the municipality has created during this year. This 30% must be clarified by the municipality and must be made public to the citizens that we realized 70% of the income and that is normal, we realized 100% of the expenses because they were contracted, this is the debt we created. Then, this debt should be calculated in the next year's budget. Of course, in the next year's budget, the repayment of this debt will be foreseen and another debt can be created and this is how it can proceed", says Shkëmbi.
A look at the official web pages of the municipalities shows that there are no published draft budgets, nor explanations, graphs or tables for specific indicators. There is no information for the citizens to understand, even the previous years' budgets are also incomprehensible. This, a situation that speaks of a lack of transparency.
This article was produced under ICEDA project, co-financed by the European Union and implemented by Metamorphosis Foundation (North Macedonia), e-Governance Academy (Estonia), Partners Serbia (Serbia), NGO 35mm (Montenegro), Open Data Kosovo (Kosovo) and MJAFT! Movement (Albania).
This article was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of MJAFT! Movement and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.