The status of reform with regard to certain local issues 1. Local issues in the field of education In accordance with Law No. 131-FZ, municipalities are charged with the following functions in the field of education: organizing generally accessible and free primary general, basic general, secondary (complete) general education under the main educational programs, except the financing of the educational process, which is a function of regional authorities; organizing additional education and generally accessible free preschool education, as well as organizing recreation for children during vacations. Since 2004, the educational process has been financed by subventions provided to municipalities from the regional budget. These subventions are calculated for a municipality, depending on the number of students in general education schools and normative expenditures incurred by the implementation of state general education standards per student. Norms are established separately for urban and rural general education institutions. They include expenditures for teachers’ salaries and socalled educational expenditures. The execution of municipal budgets in the Kaliningrad Oblast in 2005 shows that subventions do not match actual expenditures sustained by local budgets in financing the educational process. It’s hard to make a judgment on the causes of underfinancing because the regional budget does not specify how exactly the norms are calculated. It seems that regional norms for implementing state general educational standards were calculated in such a way that, on the one hand, they should not be smaller than the federal norms (5,220 rubles in 2004), and, on the other hand, they should be based on the possibilities of the regional budget. In terms of salaries, the norms were calculated based on a standard staffing table for general education institutions as of 1989. However over the past 15 years staffing tables have increased, partly due to new 104
http://www.ewi.info/system/files/reports/Modernizing%20Municipal%20Finance%20of%20the%20Kaliningrad%
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