Local Government Expenditure Responsibilities

Local Government Organization and Finance: Poland 307

council.The only commission that is obligatory in every local government is the scrutiny commission (komisja rewizyjna).All political groups represented in the council must be represented in the scrutiny commission.

Each local government has its own executive board and its own administration.Until 2002,the councilors elected the head ofthe executive board. Such is still the case at the county and regional tiers,but at the municipal level,a mayor is directly elected by popular vote.The elected mayor may appoint his or her deputies.

In counties and regions,the executive board consists ofup to five people (including the head),who are elected by the councilors.The head ofthe executive board may be elected from among the councilors or may be appointed from outside the council.(There is an assumption that in such a case,the head ofthe board is a management specialist rather than a politician,but it does not always work that way in practice.)

Two other important people in local government administration are the secretary and the treasurer.They both participate in the executive board meetings,but they do not vote.The secretary is usually responsible for the daily operation and supervision ofthe city (county,region) hall.Both are appointed by the council,but their names are suggested by the mayor.

The directly elected city mayor may be recalled (before the end ofhis or her four-year term) by referendum only;county or regional executive boards may be recalled by a council.Recent amendments ofrelevant laws make such an early termination ofexecutive boards much more difficult.Such terminations now require a decision by the vast majority (three-fifths ofall elected councilors) ofcouncilors,and there are also restrictions on the frequency of no-confidence votes.

The internal organization ofthe local administration (the names and number ofdepartments) depends entirely on local bylaws.

Local Government Expenditure Responsibilities

The reforms granted a wide range offunctions to municipal governments and greatly shortened the list ofcounty functions.The aggregate county budget is only a small fraction (about a quarter) ofaggregate municipal budgets (see figure 9.1).The currency used throughout the chapter is the Polish zloty (Zl).

Such a division offunctions is possible because ofthe relatively large sizeofmunicipal units in Poland.1 As seen in the preceding section,at the beginning ofthe 1990s,Poland,unlike many other countries in Central and Eastern Europe (such as the Czech Republic,Hungary,or the Slovak