Balanced Budget Requirements Revisited

We test the effect of balanced budget requirements (BBRs) on budget outcomes using data published in audited financial statements. With a focus on the General Fund, we find states frequently reported deficits in their adopted budgets and relied on sizeable and favorable expenditure variances to close budget gaps before the end of the budget period. Empirical analysis shows that technical or strict BBRs procedures did not increase the likelihood that a state would report a balanced budget. We corroborate our findings using fund balance data. If technical or strict BBRs are effective, states would report higher fund balances, all else equal. Results show that states that adopted political BBRs reported lower fund balances. More importantly, the adoption of strict or technical BBRs did not lead to higher fund balances.

Planning for the Unknown: Local Government Strategies from the Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Season in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

This article outlines how counties and municipalities in North Carolina prepared their fiscal year 2020–21 budgets amid the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to an April 2020 survey, 92 percent of jurisdictions reported anticipating a general-fund shortfall for FY 2021, and over 20 percent expected shortfalls exceeding 10 percent of their general funds. Over three-quarters of jurisdictions reported not budgeting for any new positions, and over half instituted hiring freezes. This research presents important insights into how counties and municipalities prepared for the recession and highlights the differences and similarities of those strategies.

THE PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZING DIALOGICAL SPEECH IN GERMAN

Рассматривается диалогическая речевая деятельность студентов неязыковых факультетов вуза с позиции когнитивно-коммуникативного подхода. Анализируются продуктивные и рецептивные виды речевой деятельности и их роль в освоении языкового материала. Рассмотрены эффективные принципы организации диалога, а именно: учет общего фонда знаний участников диалогического пространства; комбинация заученного и спонтанного речевого компонента; отработка и запоминание определенных речевых структур; роль преподавателя как модератора диалогического общения; вопросно-ответное диалогическое единство; коммуникативные принципы информативности, достаточности и рациональности. На конкретных примерах показано, каким образом коммуникативные принципы позволяют преподавателю наблюдать за учебным процессом, управлять и контролировать диалогическую речь участников коммуникации. The article examines the dialogical speech activity of non-linguistic students of the university from the cognitive-communicative approach standpoint. Productive and receptive types of speech activity and their role in the development of language material are analyzed. The effective principles of organizing the dialogue are considered, namely: considering the general fund of knowledge of the participants in the dialogue area; a combination of a learned and spontaneous speech component; working out and memorizing certain speech structures; the teacher’s role as a moderator of dialogical communication; question-and-answer dialogical unity; communicative principles of information content, sufficiency and rationality. Specific examples show how the communicative principles allow the teacher to observe the educational process, manage and control the dialogical speech of the participants in the communication.

The Influence of Neighboring Jurisdictions Matters: Examining the Impact of Natural Disasters on Local Government Fiscal Accounts

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of natural disasters on emergency and disaster relief service (EDRS) expenditure in the governmental funds for sixty-six counties in the state of Florida between 2009 and 2013. Specifically, it will explore whether the fiscal responses of local governments in these fiscal accounts are spatially dependent by using the spatial Durbin model. It finds that EDRS expenditures in the general fund and in the special revenue fund of one county are influenced by the levels of damage in neighboring counties. This study also finds a spillover effect of intergovernmental revenues from state and federal governments on these EDRS expenditures in fiscal accounts. These results suggest that the provision of public goods (such as disaster relief activities) may generate spatial spillover at the local level in the context of US federalism. Moreover, this study highlights the importance of accounting for spatial factors in the study with respect to local jurisdictions’ fiscal reactions to natural disasters.

Methodological tools of budget financing of the agricultural sector of the economy

The article is devoted to the development of methodological tools for budget financing of the agricultural sector of the economy of Ukraine. It is substantiated that the agricultural sector is a basic component of sustainable development of the national economy, a multiplier of general economic growth. The low quality of budget planning was diagnosed, which negatively affected the formation of the system of budget financing of the agricultural sector of the Ukrainian economy. Systemic shortcomings of the financial support of the agricultural sector of the economy from the State Budget of Ukraine identified: repeated adjustment of planned expenditures for the general and especially for the special fund, due to non-fulfillment of planned volumes and untimely budget allocations for the needs of the agricultural sector, lack of continuity the amount of funding for government programs, etc. It is established that agriculture of Ukraine is financed by 2/3 from the general fund of the State budget, from the special - by a third; the main source of funding for other sectors of the agricultural sector is the general fund. The types of models of state regulation of the agricultural sector of the economy in terms of basic features are identified - the type of financial policy, the level of state intervention, targeting, consequences for the market environment, and countries that apply the relevant models. According to this set of features, American and European types of models are distinguished. The type of capital reproduction model in the agrarian sector of Ukraine's economy is diagnosed as an intermediate type (between American and European) with a specific mechanism of financial regulation, in which direct methods of state regulation with appropriate levers and tools are preferred. It is emphasized that the target vector of state support should be positive dynamics in creating added value in the agricultural sector of the economy and stabilizing the financial stability of agricultural enterprises, which will form the basis of expanded capital reproduction and encourage accelerated sustainable development of the agricultural sector. The main directions of budget financing of the agrarian sector of the economy of Ukraine are formed: increase of absolute volume and specific weight in the general expenses of the Consolidated budget of Ukraine at the level of the contribution of the branch to the GDP of the country; improving the quality of budget planning of expenditures, limiting the possibility of adjusting their volumes for the general and special fund; expenditures to support food security and export potential of the agricultural sector of the economy under protected items; ensuring structural changes in favor of the development budget and its formation on a medium-term basis; prohibition of discretion in the financing of state and regional target programs in accordance with the approved passports, specification of these expenditures in accordance with the departmental and program classification, to ensure the transparency of the budget process.

CLUSTER ANALYSIS OF TERRITORIAL COMMUNITIES’ BUDGET EXPENDITURE STRUCTURE IN UKRAINE UNDER FISCAL EQUALIZATION

The national fiscal equalization mechanism currently in force in Ukraine functions according to the tax capability criterion based on local budget revenues from personal income taxation. Potential conflicts of interest are inherent to this criterion due to differences in full revenue structures of territorial communities’ budgets, as well as their public service capacity and capital endowment, so that local authorities may not be motivated enough to use central government transfers to stimulate wider demand for productive labor in the community. Based on the relative budget expenditure indicators for 872 Ukrainian territorial communities, according to the 2020 totals, five categories of expenditure structure were identified using k-means cluster analysis: 1) the share of administrative spending in general fund expenditure is between 30% and 50%, the share of capital expenditures is at most 25% of total budget expenditure; 2) the capital expenditure share is at least 20%; 3) the share of wages is at most 75% in general fund expenditure; 4) the administrative spending share is higher than 50%; 5) the administrative spending share is lower than 30%, capital expenditure does not exceed 20% of the total. Parameters were estimated for log-linear dependency between general fund revenues per capita and ratios of direct/reverse transfers from central government budget, within the identified clusters and the full sample. The results allow noticing that the dependency between the revenue values and transfer ratios is statistically weaker and less elastic for clusters 2 and 3. Besides, the cluster groups show the statistically significant difference in average population of the respective communities, with lower population in clusters 1 and 4, moderate in 2 and 5, and higher in cluster 3. The differences in expenditure structure between donors and recipients of the fiscal equalization mechanism are most evident in modestly populated communities, i.e. with approximately 10,000 populations (clusters 2 and 5), where the analysis reveals subsidizing of higher administrative expenditure and capital investment shares at the expense of communities with more efficient administration. The potential conflict of interest is further amplified by lower differentiation in transfer ratios of communities with lower wage share, which predominantly act as donors through reverse budget transfers (cluster 3), as well as of communities with high capital expense shares, which are predominantly recipients (cluster 2). The identified interests and issues of the communities constituting the expenditure structure clusters allow suggesting two model priorities for inter-municipal cooperation. The first one is common projects in public services provision between the modestly populated communities with high wage shares and unequal endowment in investment resources. The second one is the shared commercial use of resources in least financially capable communities, funded by donor communities with comparatively low wage share which, in their turn, would require further optimization of administrative expenditures to be able to implement the projects of this kind.

УПРАВЛІННЯ БРЕНДИНГОМ АДМІНІСТРАТИВНО-ТЕРИТОРІАЛЬНИХ УТВОРЕНЬ У СИСТЕМІ СОЦІАЛЬНО-ЕКОНОМІЧНОГО РОЗВИТКУ

From the perspective of socioeconomic development framework, the article provides insights on the contemporary issues of branding management of administrative territorial units. Following the analytical review data on Sumy region communities based on the calculation of budget efficiency as the ratio of the community general fund income (financial potential of united territorial communities (UTC)) and the general fund expenditures, the hypothesis as to the consistent relationship between the successful performance of the united territorial community and strategic approach to its management has been verified. As the key priorities for the united territorial communities brand development the study offers to consider the following: UTC social priority group brands; UTC entrepreneurial priority group brands; UTC tourism priority group brands; and the UTC green brands. Based on the proposed algorithm for setting the priority areas of the united territorial communities brand development, a strategic matrix of UTC brand development of the Sumy region has been constructed. The implementation of the given strategic approach to setting the priority areas of the united territorial communities brand development will contribute to building a successful marketing strategy for the Sumy region as an umbrella brand that combines subbrands of united territorial communities, further distributed according to the development priority criterion. This approach allows, on the one hand, to design a unified algorithm for the development, operation and implementation of territorial branding and marketing, and on the other – to consider the unique characteristics of each of the UTC with its individual set of competitive advantages, specific history, image, key resources available and associated problems.

Old Age Pensions

This chapter assesses Article XXIV of the Colorado Constitution, which provides for old age pensions. A 1936 citizens’ initiative added the article to set up the Old Age Pension Fund in the state treasury and entitle the fund to specified revenues. A 1956 initiative amended the article to raise pension revenues, increase pensions, and add a health and medical care fund. It also allows surplus revenue to be used for other purposes. Section 3 sets qualifications for entitlement to a pension. Litigation and statutes have changed eligibility rules over time. Section 6 defines pension amounts, reduced by other retirement or pension income. In practice, because of availability of other pensions, the system has operated with surpluses paid into the general fund.

Website as a component of ensuring the transparency of administrative processes in public administration: the example of OTG Dnipropetrovsk region

The analysis of the data obtained as a result of evaluation of the official websites of the united territorial communities of Dnipropetrovsk region on the content of regulatory documents, feedback services, administrative services, access to public information and ease of use of the website. The author presents a chart with summary integrated estimates of community websites and the values of the income of the general fund of each united community per capita. It is emphasized that at the time of the study, some of the communities were recently formed, so the scores obtained by the results are not a constant trend, but are a characteristic of the stage of their formation. To identify the correlation of integrated assessments with the financial capacity of each community, compare their graphical representations in the diagram. The evaluation results show that the quality of the website reflects the extent to which the activities of the united territorial community ensure the transparency of administrative processes by stages.