About project

Project title: Creation of methodology and tools for monitoring financial health of municipalities

Project Registration Number: 02027/2017 / FIN

Project goal:

The aim of the project is to create a comprehensive simple methodology for evaluating the financial health of municipalities, which would be placed in the form of freely available software, for example on the website of the Moravian-Silesian Region. The software will enable the representatives of municipalities and towns participating in the project to find out, through clearly defined and interpretable indicators, the state of the given municipality in terms of financial health. The main benefit of the project will be a significant improvement in the awareness of municipalities and towns about their financial health and possible risks related to further irresponsible management.

This objective will be achieved through the following sub-objectives:

For public administration practice:

1. a set of financial health indicators will be created, which will be tested on a selected sample of municipalities and subsequently evaluated, discussed with a panel of experts, evaluation criteria (ratings) will be established, missing data will be supplemented by primary research,
2. the necessary data will be collected to fulfill the application (cooperation with the Ministry of Finance is considered here),
3.  a platform (web application) for calculating the financial health of the municipality will be created,
4.  the database will be tested and rankings of the specified municipalities will be compiled from the database;
5.  a description of the individual indicators will be formulated, including an explanation of their importance, link to the basic legal requirements regarding budgetary discipline.

At the scientific and research level, the following partial objectives are considered:

1. linking academic research with practical application in public finance,
2. design and testing of the academic model in practice as a controlled experiment with conclusions for teaching,
3. publishing an expert paper on the field of Public Economics and Administration,
4. teaching innovation in Public Economics and Administration,
5. active support of professional and qualification growth of involved academics.

Duration:  1. 5. 2017 – 31. 12. 2018

Partner of project: Moravskoslezský kraj