Local budgets opportunities in the implementation of municipal development strategies

The Federal Law “On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation” has included municipal entities into the process of building a national planning system. It involves the development and implementation of strategic documents to support the budget process and strategies of social and economic development of the territories. The very fact of the legislative inclusion of the municipal management in the system of national planning does not yet ensure its effectiveness. First of all, in order to achieve target-oriented indicators, especially in the long run, economic and, in the first place, budgeting support is necessary. At the same time, numerous Russian studies show that local budgets are drawn up in isolation from the economic opportunities of their territories and indicate the instability and imperfection of the statutory regulation of local government and the unsystematic nature of municipal reforms. In this regard, it is extremely important to analyze the budgetary opportunities and limitations of local governments when implementing the strategies for the development of their territories, and it is the purpose of the article. On the basis of the official statistics, the local budgets of the Vologda Oblast has been analyzed since 2004 in comparison with that of the Northwest and the Russian Federation. As a result of the calculation of the distribution of revenues between budget levels, the conclusion has been drawn that the municipal entities receive an extremely low share of GRP growth (less than 3%). The growing centralization of tax sources in the regional budgets is substantiated, it does not allow stopping the tendency of growth of municipal subventions. The article reveals the low financial autonomy of budgets of rural settlements, which, apparently, was the reason for the beginning of building a system of national strategic planning from the level of municipal districts and urban okrugs. This fact underlines the obviously low ability of rural settlements to take part in the development of growing points for the country. A number of measures are proposed for the municipal, regional and federal levels to create budgetary conditions for involving municipal entities in the system of strategic planning. This is due to the fact that their establishment as equal participants in the strategic planning requires a purposeful and coordinated work regarding all levels of the budgetary system. The results of the study can be used for bachelors and masters programs, by research workers as a basis for further researches, and by governing bodies in making managerial decisions.