Assessing the effectiveness of budget expenditures in the field of housing and communal services on the example of the regions of the Volga Federal District
Abstract Under the influence of various endogenous and exogenous shocks, a limited amount of funds and the different state of the housing and communal services sector (hereinafter - housing and communal services) in the regions, there is a need to improve the quality of public financial management and optimize expenses in this area. Finding ways to optimize the use of budget funds necessitates assessing the performance of the industry, as well as selecting and justifying a system of indicators for analysis. Based on the selected indicators, the state of the housing and communal services sector was assessed using data from the Republic of Bashkortostan as an example, and the main problems were identified. A methodological toolkit for assessingthe effectiveness of budget expenditures is proposed, which allows, based on the ratio of costs and results, to identify a region of «best practice", determine the effectiveness of other territories and reserves for improving their situation. Testing based on statistical data for the regions of the Volga Federal District made it possible to identify effective and ineffective regions. The importance of applying the proposed approach in assessingthe effectiveness of budget expenditures in the housing and communal services sector at the regional level is determined. The results obtained as part of the study are the initial basis for assessing additional factors influencing the effectiveness of regional expenditures in the housing and communal services sector and developing recommendations for financingthe industry.
Keywords: housing and communal services, effectiveness of budget expenditures, emergency housing, deterioration of communal infrastructure, DEA method
Highlights:
♦ the increased influence of various exogenous and endogenous shocks, the limited amount of funds make it necessary to assess the effectiveness of budget expenditures and optimize their distribution in order to achieve socially useful goals in the housing and communal services sector;
♦ an assessment of the effectiveness of expenditures in housing and communal services in the regions of the Volga Federal District revealed the potential for optimizingthe use of budget funds;
♦ the potential for cost reduction in high-performing regions (R=l) is 0%;
♦ ineffective regions (R<1) have the potential to reduce costs in the amount of more than 80 billion rubles in 2022 prices.
Aliya U. Farkhutdinova - Ufa Federal Research Center of Russian Academy of Sciences, Ufa, Russia