Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 17th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview V. Working Group on Public Sector Finance and Accounting Author(s) Desislava Stoilova South-West University “Neofit Rilski” Blagoevgrad Bulgaria Title Municipal asset management in Bulgaria: A case study of municipal enterprises in Blagoevgrad File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract Municipal property is one of the basic preconditions for local governments’ autonomy in Bulgaria. Although the Constitution granted the ownership right to municipalities in 1991, municipal property was fully regulated in 1996, when the Municipal Property Act and the State Property Act were adopted. This legal base accelerated the process of building municipal property portfolios. Over the last decade, substantial amounts of assets have been transferred from the central government to the local authorities. The process was accompanied by series of corruption scandals, abuses of administrative authority, and financial mismanagement. This is the reason why the corresponding statistical and financial data are unavailable and unreliable. Now, 18 years after the beginning of the transition process, Bulgarian municipalities own various types of assets, but there are not significant improvements in the effectiveness of municipal asset management. While governmental transfers tend to gradually decrease and raising local taxes and fees proves to be politically unpopular decision, the strategic municipal property management seems to be available and politically acceptable source of additional local revenues. The main goal of this paper is to critically examine the origin, classification and characteristics of municipal property in Bulgaria on the base of the legislation in force, presenting the basic challenges and achievements of property management in the context of the fiscal decentralization reform in the country. Analysis is focused on the effectiveness of financial management of the municipal enterprises. The case study is intended to reveal the peculiarity of the municipal enterprises in the municipality of Blagoevgrad. Situated in the southwestern Bulgaria within area of 621km2, this municipality comprises the city of Blagoevgrad and the neighboring 25 villages. The administrative center of the municipality – the city of Blagoevgrad is situated on the main route E-79, 100 km to the south of the capital city of Sofia, 20 km of the border with the Republic of Macedonia, and 100 km of the border with the Republic of Greece. With total population of 102 000 the municipality of Blagoevgrad is a medium-large size local government by Bulgarian standards. The size of municipality is a precondition for development of a complex system of local services, financial system behind, significant local administration capacity, and various types of municipal assets, including some municipal-owned enterprises. The purpose of the paper is to assess their revenue potential and expenditure relevance, to identify the main barriers of their revenue raising capacity and to propose suggestions for a more effective use of these assets as municipal own revenue sources.
