Six Maps on Small Bulgarian Municipalities
With the new census in 2012 fast approaching, the issue of trimming down the number of municipalities will become more and more important. The six maps below show some (but far from all) reasons causing the need to consolidate the local government units in some parts of the country.
Municipal workers per capita
The continued decline of the population in some regions of the country results in more wild ratios between the size of municipal administrations and the size of the population that they provide services to. This can be seen clearly in the map below, based on the quarterly data from the Ministry of Finance data on the financial condition of municipalities, including the number of municipal workers in the third quarter of 2018.
Ministry of Finance data show, that the municipalities with the smallest number of municipal workers relative to the population are Sofia municipality, Kazanlak, Dobrich and Pernik. Each of them have about 500 people per municipal worker.
Similar conditions are also present in most larger cities, excluding Pleven, which has 247 people per municipal worker.
Smaller municipalities, however, are quite different, and in some places there is a very low ratio of municipal workers to population. Treklyano municipality in Kyustendil region is a very clear example of that trend, with 26 people for each municipal worker. In total, 41 municipalities have fewer than 100 people per municipal worker.
These data show, that, even though a territorial and administrative reform is out of the public discourse at present, it is unavoidable in the near future, especially should the current obligations of municipalities be kept as is or be expanded. There are municipalities where local administration is among the largest employers – a trend, which, paired together with the issue of effectiveness of public spending raises numerous concerns regarding political process at the local level.
Municipalities under 6 thousand people
The unbalanced ratio between municipal workers and local population is mostly a consequence of the lower part of the equation - the number of people, living in a given municipality. The reason for this is that the municipal administration has to carry out a basic number of functions and provide services, regardless of its size.
The next map shows the municipalities, which according to 2017 data do not meet the first criterion of Art. 8 of the Law on the administrative and territorial division of Republic of Bulgaria (LATDRB) for the creation of a new municipality – having a population over 6 thousand people.
According to NSI data, their number has doubled between 2000 and 2017, and in the last year a quarter of all municipalities (a total of 72) do not meet this legal criterion.
Most of those municipalities are in border regions, with a particular concentration observed in Northwestern Bulgaria. There are also 15 municipalities where the population is over 6 thousand, but below 7 thousand people. Most of those 15 are also characterized with a pretty pronounced population decline, even though there are some exceptions, such as Gorna Malina.
The question why the requirements for creating a new municipality do not apply for already existing ones stays on the table due to significant problem stemming from it, such as:
- Many municipalities and municipal companies become a leading local employer, posing obvious risk to local democracy;
- Municipalities have very limited own income and are de facto completely financially dependent on the central budget;
- Reaching the abovementioned very high ratios between the number of municipal workers and local population, which in tur mean low administrative efficiency.
EU fund absorption on the municipal level
The continued denial of territorial and administrative reform in spite of demographic logic leads to an inability to conduct local policy (including via the completion of EU projects), due to the lack of administrative capacity and sufficient financial resources in municipalities.
A good example of this is Kovachevtsi, one of the smallest municipalities in the country, with only 1658 inhabitants in 2017. It is also the only one which as of June 15th 2018 does not have a sigle euro absorbed under any EU fund. Nine other municipalities have only one completed project in this programme period (2014-2020). Seven of those are in the group of municipalities with less than 6 thousand inhabitants: Treklyano (798 inhabitants), Tsenovo (5049 inhabitants), Borino (3157 inhabitants), Chavdar (1174 inhabitants), Chelopech (1545 inhabitants), Madjarovo (1716 inhabitants) and Hitrino (6662 inhabitants). The eight municipality is Opaka (6084 inhabitants), the ninth – Dulovo (27506 inhabitants).
Since Bulgaria ascended to the EU and the cohesion programs started in the country, Bulgarian municipalities have used a total go 10.7 billion leva (data as of June 15th 2018). Relative to their population, municipalities have received on average 1513 leva per capital. Most money have been spent in Sozopol and Kostinbrod – the only municipalities with over 5 thousand leva per capita.
Bulgarian language and literature matriculation exam results
Purely demographic challenges and their effects on the capacity of the administration aside, small municipalities are also faced with significant problems in the field of education. The differences in the quality of education has become evident in the past few years, after the introduction of measures aiming at improving control at matriculation exams. While some larger municipalities keep achieving similar results as before, in some parts of the country the drop in average grades and the growth in the share of failed students at the examination are significant.
In 2018 only five municipalities had an average mark below 3.00, compared to 8 such municipalities a year ago. Even though there is not a single municipality with an average mark above 5.00, this year a grand total of 90 are above 4.00, and 15 are above 4.50 (out of a total of 237 municipalities where matriculation exams took place; the rest do not have a single school with at least one student taking the exam).
In 2018 the data demonstrate that the results are a function of the size of the municipality, as larger schools in larger municipalities in general achieve better results. Some smaller municipalities where very few students take the exam can sometimes achieve much better averages, but their results are also much more volatile over the years. On the other hand, large municipalities – Sofia-capital, Plovdiv, Varna Burgas, where the leading schools in the country are located, are always among the top ranked on the basis of average grades.
Unemployment
The bad demographic conditions in many municipalities and the inability of local authorities to influence the socio-economic processes also influence labour markets.
In 2017 there are compact clusters of municipalities, where the overall improvement of the economic conditions in the country have not “cough on” yet, especially when it comes to the labour market. Some of the reasons for this are the low business activity in those municipalities as well as the surrounding ones, as well as the relative low labour mobility of the population in those regions, including as a result of low qualifications and education of the population of working age.
In 2017, one can travel the 206 kilometres from Makresh municipality (Vidin region), though Valchedram (Montana region) to Yablanitsa (Lovech region), without crossing into a municipality with unemployment below 25%. Clusters of municipalities with high unemployment can also be found in the mixed ethnicity regions in the Northeastetn part of the country (Samuil-Venets-Hitrino-Kaolinovo-Nikola Kozlevo, for instance).
Coverage of the cadastre
The last map in this article shows the coverage of the territory of each municipality, included in cadastral maps as of the end of 2017.
The cadastre is an important prerequisite for attracting investment, optimizing land tax collection, the completion of infrastructure projects and reduction of property theft and legal battles. Low cadastre coverage of the territory of a municipality is an obstruction to investment, especially when such investment includes new construction.
In spite of the expansion of the territory covered in the past years (from 18% in 2013 to 36.6% in 2017), the improvements mainly cover larger municipalities. In 2017, in 37 of the 72 municipalities with less than 6 thousand inhabitants, the cadastral coverage is less than 1%.
