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Municipal control & authority

Centralization of National Power: The issue: In many countries, such as Ukraine, cities are basically extensions of the national and regional governments. This means cities have little control over their budgets and have no interest in saving energy because the money saved does not go to them - but into a larger budget that local governments have no control over. The process of de-evolution of power to cities is slowly going on in most of the countries in the region and can, almost by itself, generate more investments in energy efficiency.
Take the example of Bulgaria, where cities control and operate the schools - but the hospitals are owned by the Ministry of Health. Cities are spending a great deal of their scarce resources on fixing up schools, including energy efficiency improvements. No such similar investments are going into hospitals, showing the impact of increasing city control over public buildings. In addition, replacement of streetlighting - one of the most cost-effective energy-saving improvements a city can make - is stymied in Bulgaria because the streetlights are owned by the electric utility. The city pays the electric bills but has no ability to change the lamps because the utility owns them!

In Yugoslavia, the Ministries of Education and Health own the schools and hospitals, respectively. The cities have no control over these buildings, but they do have to pay their heat and electricity bills! This means the cities cannot do the necessary maintenance on these buildings, even though they are paying (literally) for the consequences of not having this control.

In October 2000, the Czech Republic passed Law No. 406, delegating responsibility to municipalities for energy planning. Over the next year, MUNEE will survey municipalities to better understand the impact of this law on energy efficiency initiatives in the country. A copy of this law can be downloaded from the Documents section of our Library.
In addition here you can download in the Czech language two other municipality related laws from the Czech Republic, both effective January 1, 2001:

Law No. 128 - Act on Municipalities
Law No. 250 - Act on the Budget Rules for Territorial Units

The Urban Institute (UI) of the United States has collected laws during more than ten years of technical assistance to local and national governments in Eastern Europe. The laws assign to locally-elected officials or legislative bodies the responsibility of resolving issues related to infrastructure, public services, and local economic development. The laws address the municipalities' specific functions, sources of financing, debt limits, and the level of state participation in forming local budget revenues.

The Urban Institute has produced a number of excellent reports, guides, and training materials, to decentralization and municipal budget authority.

A Model: The 1997 Local Government Law in Poland transferred all ownership and responsibility for municipal enterprises to the local authorities.