Problems of financing local and regional self-government

Due to the very large number of local units in the Republic of Croatia, the system of collecting income is mainly insufficient for quality and functional financing of public needs on the local and regional levels. It is therefore necessary to continue the search for new models of regulating financial relations between the state and local units. The executed decentralization of the financing of local and regional self-government is not sufficient. Because of the new work and activities that have fallen into the jurisdiction of counties (as regulated by Amendments to the Act from 2005), it is necessary to increase the state’ s allocation of funds from common taxes for the units of the local and regional self-government, to increase the autonomy of the local and regional units in the introduction of their own incomes, especially taxes, to take care about the implementation of functional decentralization, and to stimulate local and regional governments in the realization of a larger non-fiscal income of their own. It is a fact that some countries in the European Union have begun with the reorganization and reduction of their local self-government precisely because of too high financial payments for the needs of the local self-government. However, so long as the Republic of Croatia retains the existing organization of local governments, it should also provide for its financing. The local or regional self-government units’ own sources of income should be their principal sources of financing.