Significance of small municipalities from the aspect of management.

Marinac, Antun

1. INTRODUCTION

Today there is not a democratic country in the world that lacks local self-government units in its administrative structure. In compliance with the article 133, paragraph 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, local self-government units are municipalities and towns. In Croatia almost nobody has conducted surveys on small municipalities.

But regarding the fact that there are around 400 municipalities in the Republic of Croatia at the moment, and more than 350 of them are small municipalities (with up to 5000 citizens), research target in this paper is to provide the answer on their significance.

In order to achieve this, following methods have been used: methods of data acquisition (internal, external), methods of processing data (manual processing of data, machine processing of data), methods of data analysis (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, method of comparison, and method of compilation, mathematical and statistical methods).

2. ABOUT LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT IN GENERAL

It is a fact that world's state systems use local management systems as their auxiliary structures and through them achieve their local goals rather than they could achieve them using just their own organs. (Bruncic, 2001). By so doing local self-government is not a counterbalance to state government, but a replacement for functioning of state authority. The simplest and generally acceptable definition of local self-government is that it is a level of reign closest to citizens with the role of representing significance and statement of the local (Lauc, 2001).

Introduction chapter of European Charter of Local Self-Government talks about "the right of citizens to participate in the conduct of important public affairs". This right is one of the democratic principles mutual to all member countries of The European Council, and it is possible to be exercised at local level. By so doing local self-government is not a counterbalance to state government, but a replacement for functioning of state authority. (Table 1.)

Regarding the fact that local self-government becomes the right of citizens, its constitution depends upon their decisions. Only at local level and thus in small municipalities citizens are regularly in connection with their environment, and whereby the most invited to manage municipalities directly and through elected representatives in the councils of their municipalities (Hrzenjak, 2004). From a normative approach Croatian local self-government does not necessary differ from European countries. With no major problems the principles of local self-government have been taken over as the part of the reign i.e. self-government closest to the citizens, participation of citizens in decision-making directly through their elected representatives or indirectly, the right of citizens to participate in the important part of public affairs, autonomy of local units in defining the internal constitution, financial independency of local units etc.

3. SCOPE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT OF SMALL MUNICIPALITIES

Role and significance of small municipalities arise from their scope of self-government. According to the article 134, paragraph 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia local self-government units and also small municipalities conduct affairs related to: organization of settlements and housing, town and urban planning, utility services, child-care, social welfare, primary health protection, education and primary-school education, culture, physical culture and sport, consumer protection, protection and development of natural environment, and fire-protection and civil defence, all in the aim of meeting citizens' interest and needs. We believe that the activity "participation of citizens" in local affairs is crucial in small municipalities. Citizens should be active in local initiatives through: search for income recourses, conduct of daily problems, suggestion of priorities in the use of scarce public recourses, control of local bodies and functionaries providing them with possible solutions, so municipalities are enabled to make decisions in an open and transparent way which contributes to the improvement of the local self-government function.

4. SIGNIFICANCE OF SMALL MUNICIPALITIES

Small municipalities take significant place in social and political life of the Republic of Croatia because in them, almost with no exception, there has been strong identification of citizens with their municipalities (Antic, 2005). That can be a source of a strong motivation for their participation in local management, and with right citizens from the areas of small municipalities believe, in compliance with the guaranteed right to local self-government, they are better at making decisions for that municipality than someone who lives outside its area. It is undisputable that small municipalities have also some advantages over bigger local self-government units. From the aspects of theory of democracy it could be proved that smaller the municipalities are, more democratic they are, because citizens can participate in local affairs in greater amount. In numerous small municipalities citizens estimate that they are able to control public money expenditure in greater amount, gathered by collecting taxes or by capitalization of the asset of the local self-government, than they could do it in bigger local self-government units. (Marinac, 2006).Small municipalities along with development of utility services should gradually become growth factors in series of social activities (education, health care, culture etc) and economy. To be able to achieve this they ought to: be efficient and economical, satisfy citizens' requirements, behave rationally and economically, earn and not only collect, lead active politics and not react only to the problems, be enterprising and honest, work in compliance with the law and own decisions, impartial and work towards everyone's benefit, with efficient surveillance from the middle level (Kopric, 2001). Even though it seems it should not significantly interfere with the existing territorial organization, due to identification of citizens with their local self-government, the problem remains open in the context of Croatia joining European Union in which decentralization and regional development are top valued. Therefore it is necessary to make assumptions for regionalization of Croatia inside of which the identity of small municipalities would be also recognized. Instead of cutting down some of the small municipalities, we believe that conditions should be created to enable small municipalities to independently estimate opportunities for their existence i.e. their possible voluntary collaborations, joining or merging, but always and exclusively at will of the local population.

5. BASIC PROBLEMS OF SMALL MUNICIPALITIES

Parallel data about the size of municipalities show that there are also a great number of small municipalities in some European countries. In the Republic of Slovenia there are more than half, out of 193 municipalities (per 2 million citizens), with less than 5000 citizens. In Hungary there are 55% of municipalities with less than 1000 citizens, and in the Czech Republic 8%. In Swiss municipalities there are approximately 2.333 citizens, and in Croatian there are 3.220. In France there are more than 36.000 municipalities, and there are even smaller ones with even less than 100 citizens (Hrzenjak, 2004).

According to the Law of Areas of Counties, Towns and Municipalities of the Republic of Croatia, territorial constitution of the Republic of Croatia consists of 20 counties, the City of Zagreb with special status, 126 towns and 429 municipalities.(Lukes-Petrovic, et al, 2005) The basic problem of small municipalities is not their size, but their administrative and financial capacity.

In order to minimize the differences among local units we believe it is necessary to find the relation in which a local unit is still small enough to be close to the citizens and able to efficiently solve local priority issues, and yet big enough that its administrative capacities are satisfying, that it is able to ensure that in its area and with its asset is possible to provide with sufficient amount of public money which may be used for providing with public goods whose provision is supervised by local units.

6. CONCLUSION

The main role of small municipalities is to research citizens' needs and use as cheap as possible organization to respond to them creating conditions for economy growth and efficient management of the poor recourses they have in disposition. But orientation towards solving practical problems of citizens is, at this moment, more important than economy frame of small municipalities itself. In today's conditions small municipalities must learn to depend onto their own resources, in order to be able to compete with others in competition for public goods.

Everything that is conducted in small municipalities would be purposeless if it was not conducted in the interest of citizens, therefore they must be at dispose to citizens in the way that their organization will be adjusted towards meeting citizens' needs, which would finally result in citizens' satisfaction with life quality in their living area.

We believe that at this moment it is not advised to cut down small municipalities, but create conditions for independent fulfilment of obligations which arise from their self-government scope, strengthening their capacities, human ones firstly, but also technical, spatial, information, financial etc.

7. REFERENCES

Antic T. (2005). Reforms of local self-government--challenges and limitations, Newsletter for local democracy No 8, Available from: http://www.stina.hr/ Accessed: 05-27-2008

Bruncic, D. (2001). State and Local Governance, Local SelfGovernment: Croatian and Dutch experiences, Croatian Institute for Local Self-Government Osijek and Interkerklijk Vredesberad Haag, Osijek

Hrzenjak, J.(2004). Local and regional self-government of the Republic of Croatia, Informator, Zagreb

Kopric, I.(2001). Frameworks, accents and perspectives of current decentralization in Croatia, Croatian Public Administration, numbers 3-4, Zagreb, pp. 411-454.

Lauc, Z. (2001). Key Notions of Local Self-Government, Local self-government: Croatian and Dutch experiences, Croatian Institute for Local self-government Osijek and Interkerklijk Vredesberad Haag, Osijek

Lukes-Petrovic M., Mesaric, H. & Nikolov J.(2005). A guide to the Croatian system of local and regional self-government, United Nations Program for Development (UNDP), Croatian Institute for Local Self-Government (HILS), str. 3.

Marinac, A.(2006). Place and role of small municipalities with reference to municipality of Kaptol, Master's paper, Faculty of Law Osijek

Tab. 1. Political and administrative structure of the Republic of
Croatia

 STATE REGIONAL LOCAL
 ADMINISTRATION ADMINISTRATION ADMINISTRATION

 COUNTRY

 The Parliament
 (legislative
 power)

 The government
 (executive power)
 Courts (power)

COUNTRY Government

LEVEL * ministry

 * central State
 Offices

 * state
 administrative
 organizations

 COUNTY
 County Assembly
 County chief
 Hall

REGIONAL state Administrative
LEVEL administrative bodies:
 organizations

 in counties * departments
 * services

 TOWN/
 MUNICIPALITY
 Council
 Mayor
 Chief of municipal

LOCAL Administrative Hall
 bodies

LEVEL Branch offices outside centers Administrative
 of state bodies:
 administration * departments
 * service

 unique
 administrative
 department