The procedure for developing municipal target and comprehensive programs
in Odesa was approved by Order No. 1115 of the Mayor of Odesa dated November 8, 2016. As stated in the order, a municipal target program is a set of interconnected areas and measures coordinated by timeframe and resources among all involved implementers and aimed at solving the most pressing problems of the city’s development. Put into plain language, a municipal program is a concrete multi-year action plan for all involved parties to achieve a predetermined goal, listing the actions of the relevant city bodies and defining both the areas of action and the financial resources required to carry them out.
Purely formally, every municipal program passes through certain stages:
1. Initiation, justification and preparation of the draft program.
2. Approval of the program.
3. Approval of budget allocations for implementation of the program.
4. Implementation of the program, including amendments to the program.
5. Report on implementation of the program.
Logically, each program should have a financing strategy designed for several years. In practice, financing is determined in the city budget, which is adopted only for the current year. It should also be noted that programs may provide for other sources of funding, but our analysis covers exclusively the funds designated as financing from the city budget.
Current realities (based on materials from the February 21, 2024 session)
At present, 29 municipal programs have been approved in the city. Analysis of these programs, comparing their 2024 financing needs with the funds allocated from the city budget this year, allows them to be divided into four groups:
Group 1. These are programs approved at the most recent session, on February 21, for which budget financing has not yet been allocated. They are not specially marked in the table.
Group 2.These are programs whose financial provision exceeds 96% of the required amount or equals the required amount, allowing us to conclude that there are no financial factors preventing their implementation. This group includes 12 programs. They are marked in green in the table.
Group 3. These are programs whose level of financial provision ranges from 85% to 64%, placing achievement of the planned results in doubt because a number of measures included in the program are unfunded. This group includes seven programs. They are marked in yellow in the table.
Group 4. These are programs whose financial provision ranges from 57% to 6%, making it possible to state that, given the resources allocated to them, their objectives will not be achieved. This group includes eight programs. They are marked in red in the table.
The list of municipal programs can be viewed at this link.
Information on the distribution of expenditures in the budget of the Odesa City Territorial Community for implementation of municipal programs in 2024 can be found in Appendix 7 to Odesa City Council Decision No. 1789-VIII of February 21, 2024, “On Amendments to Odesa City Council Decision No. 1618-VIII of November 29, 2023, ‘On the Budget of the Odesa City Territorial Community for 2024’”. Anyone can review the indicators collected by Green Leaf NGO in the table.
Municipal Target Program for the Development of Education in Odesa
Let us analyze several programs. For example, the Municipal Target Program for the Development of Education in Odesa for 2023–2025, which we assigned to Group 3. For 2024, the program envisages spending UAH 167,184,000, while the budget provides only UAH 113,073,100 to finance it. The principal spending unit is the Department of Education and Science of Odesa City Council.
The program includes the following areas:
| Areas of expenditure | Approximate amount under the program |
| Section 1. Creating conditions to meet the population’s need for high-quality and accessible education for children and stable operation of educational institutions | 28 500 000 |
| including major repairs of buildings and premises | 20 000 000 |
| Section 2 — Creating a safe educational environment | 92 850 000 |
| including arrangement of protective shelters | 30 000 000 |
| including fire-safety measures | 50 000 000 |
| Section 3. Digitalization of the educational process and management of the education sector | 22 706 000 |
| including equipping institutions with multimedia equipment | 6 700 000 |
| including implementation of an electronic-school system | 15 000 000 |
| Section 4. Supporting the development of children’s and students’ intellectual and creative potential | 11 658 000 |
| including recreation and health improvement for children | 5 000 000 |
| including purchase of New Year gifts | 6 000 000 |
| Section 5. Developing creative potential and increasing the prestige of work in the education sector | 11 470 000 |
| including municipal payments | 11 000 000 |
As the table shows, all of these measures are interconnected. Underfunding some areas will negatively affect the effectiveness of all the others. Children need properly equipped educational institutions, completed repairs, recreation and gifts, and teachers receiving decent pay. But the funds allocated from the budget are not enough even to carry out the first two areas of the program, let alone the others. Alternatively, implementation of the other areas would come at the expense of children’s safety while they are in educational institutions.
Municipal Target Program for Civil Protection of the Population
We also propose focusing on the provision of shelters for civilians. This is governed by the Municipal Target Program for Civil Protection of the Population and Territories from Man-Made and Natural Emergencies and for Fire Safety in Odesa for 2022–2026. It provides for spending of more than UAH 178 million in 2024, of which UAH 113.5 million is required for item 1.1 alone — “construction, major repairs and reconstruction of municipally owned civil-protection shelters.” There are also public warning systems, communication channels for warning systems and many other items. Yet only UAH 95.6 million is allocated from the budget for the entire program in 2024, which is not enough even for the protective shelters. The alternative is to implement other areas of the program by reducing shelter financing even further.
Conclusions
At present, most municipal target programs are not fully provided with financial resources. In effect, one can speak of two “parallel worlds”: one says everything is fine because there is a municipal target program addressing the problem and it has been approved by deputies. The other parallel world, represented by the Finance Department, says the city cannot fully finance the solution because the city budget lacks funds. This affects the effectiveness of spending the money that is available: funds are spent, but the objective built into most programs is not achieved.
Putting this area in order requires financing indicators for municipal target programs to correspond to the financial resources actually available to the city. This is possible only if municipal target programs are aligned with the real capacity of the budget, adjusting not only the program’s areas of activity but also its objectives. For example, how can one speak about developing electric transport if the allocated funds are not even enough to pay employees’ wages, let alone finance all other areas of the program, including equipment repairs?