All local government units in Poland have been analysed regarding their consolidated debt. The consolidated debt was compared with the budget debt which is subject to monitoring and statutory restrictions. The scale of extra-budgetary debt has been revealed as recorded in the balance sheet of a local government unit, a parent entity. In practice, the consolidated balance sheet and debt presented in it are not subject to debates and analyses. Local governments refrain from auditing and publicising of the consolidated balance sheet. The article describes the risks related to unlimited local government debt.
The present analysis is devoted to the financial autonomy of communes and the ways of understanding it. The author analyzes the legal, jurisdictional and actual determinants of the commune’s financial independence and points to the consequences following from them. The author poses a hypothesis that the constitutional value in the form of the financial autonomy of communes is not full realized by the parliament in contemporary Poland, with the Constitutional Tribunal underestimating it. The increase in the revenues of communes is not adequate to the duties assigned to them by the parliament. The consequences of the ongoing process include an increased debt of the communes and their problems with realization of the needs of local communities, the latter being the goal whose realization was the reason to have established the local self-government.