A large-scale reform of the budget process, affecting all its stages and participants, begun by the state in the late nineties of the XX century, in 2010 “presented” the law to the society, significantly changing the rules and conditions of the game and the list of recipients of funds from budgets of all levels. The fairly uniform budget sphere, familiar to all, was divided into new types of institutions: state, budget, and autonomous. What specific changes have occurred, and what will they give us - ordinary recipients of budget services, and the institutions themselves?
The concept of public service
In order to understand how state, budgetary and autonomous institutions differ among themselves, we must first recall the term “state (municipal) service”, which was also introduced into the legislation in 2010.
Under state and municipal services is meant the fulfillment of powers assigned either to state authorities or to municipal ones. Hence the difference in the name of the service. The execution of powers is usually carried out not by employees of certain departments, ministries and departments, but through the creation of various subordinate institutions by them and bringing them tasks of an appropriate nature.
Budget Reform
The appearance in the legal field of budgetary institutions of a new formation (Riots, as some internet users caustically called them) was provided by the notorious law with a modest title “On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in Connection with the Improvement of the Legal Status of State (Municipal) Institutions”. He first of all touched upon the norms of the Civil and Budget Codes, the laws “On Non-Profit Organizations” and “On Autonomous Institutions”.
Goals and objectives of reform
As the main task of introducing innovations, they said increasing the effectiveness of budget expenditures. In fact, it was planned to reform the entire budget (and especially the social) sphere. The usual budgetary institutions should have gone out of use, for the actions of which the content, regardless of the final result and demand among the population, was the responsibility of the founder, and their place was intended for institutions of new forms with a completely different scope of rights and obligations.
Opinions appeared periodically in the media that such a reform would lead to the commercialization of the public sector, but the Ministry of Finance, which is the ideologist and the main developer of this law, categorically denied this possibility and carried out explanatory work quite actively, both on its website and on the open same forum.
How is a public institution different from a budget or autonomous one? For an objective understanding of the differences between these authorities it is necessary to carefully compare the main provisions that characterize their rights and obligations.
The main characteristics of budgetary, autonomous and state-owned institutions
The introduction of amendments to the current legislation confronted the fact that it was necessary to choose a new legal form for the subordinate institutions of all authorities. From their brief characteristics it is clear how the public institution differs from the budget or autonomous:
- A public institution - the minimum amount of rights, all property belongs to the founder, maintenance is strictly according to the estimates approved by the founder, full control over activities, all income from paid services go to the budget.
- Budget institution - a larger scope of rights, the founder is not responsible for the financial results (debts), part of the property is owned by the founder, part is the institution, the institution manages the money from entrepreneurial activity, operates through subsidies for the maintenance of the property and for the fulfillment of the established task.
- Autonomous institution - has the largest amount of rights, especially in terms of paid services. There is a supervisory board that carries some administrative and advisory functionality. In other positions, it is similar to the budget.
Initially, certain legal forms are not static: a decision can be made, for example, on transferring a public institution to a budget, and then back if necessary.
Institutional financial support
If all institutions before the reform were participants in the budget process, the new law in their capacity left only state-owned institutions, to which essentially all levels of government were assigned. The differences between state, budget and autonomous institutions are most clearly manifested precisely in the scheme of financing their activities.
- For a public institution, the founder (the main manager of budgetary funds) sets the limits of budgetary obligations on the basis of which the budget estimate is drawn up and approved by the founder. The estimate is transferred to the Treasury, and all expenditure of funds is carried out exclusively within it in the context of the approved articles. If there is a need for redistribution of the estimate, then this is done only with the consent of the founder and a limited number of times per quarter. But! In the event of any kind of accounts payable at the institution (which is unlikely within the framework of general control and with the trend of tougher penalties for violations of budget legislation), the founder bears subsidiary liability.
- For a budgetary organization, the founder (the main manager of budgetary funds) approves the list of services, establishes financial standards for their implementation and brings the task for services in physical units. Based on the completed assignment and standards, the amount of the cash subsidy for its implementation is calculated. Money should be transferred to the institution's account monthly. If for some reason the task is not completed, then the amount of the subsidy is reduced without taking into account whether the institution has a need for funds or not. In case of overfulfillment without the consent of the founder, excessively completed volumes of the assignment may not be paid. For its obligations, the institution bears the obligation itself. The funds received are used in accordance with the drawn up and approved plan of financial and economic activities. The redistribution of funds within the plan is the responsibility of the institution itself.
- For the autonomous institution, the same principle applies as for the budget, but it is much freer in terms of procurement.
Property of institutions
The comparative characteristics of the state and budgetary institutions also reveal a number of interesting points. So, for state formation all property is assigned exclusively on the basis of operational management. For a budgetary institution, the founder establishes a list of especially valuable property. This is all done for quite cunning purposes: since the legislator did not provide for subsidiary liability for the debts of a budgetary institution, there is a serious risk of loss of all property in the framework of judicial penalties. In order not to squander the treasury and this rule has been introduced: real estate and especially valuable property are not subject to alienation. An institution has the right to sell something from such property only with the permission of the founder. It is possible to freely dispose only of property purchased at the expense of entrepreneurial income. But they will also have to maintain it themselves.
Entrepreneurship
Another significant indicator of how a public institution differs from a budget one is the ability to generate revenue from paid services. Since they are all non-profit, entrepreneurial activity is not the main task, and you can deal with it only in the main areas provided for by the charter. That is, the hospital cannot hold concerts and take money for them. Institutions of both types can engage in a kind of entrepreneurship. But! Revenues from a public institution will go to the budget, and there is no guarantee that they will return in the form of additional financing. The budget institution itself manages the earned funds.
Institutional taxation
Both state and budgetary institutions operate on a generally accepted system, that is, they submit all reports and pay all calculated taxes. Here is a public institution than the budget? Nothing. Here are autonomous ones, which have more opportunities for earning, can choose a simplification - this is a rather serious preference.
Summary
Although the reform process, taking into account a sufficiently long transition period, has been going on for several years, there have not yet been any massive bankruptcies of institutions or their transition to commercial rails for the population. The so-called commercialization is manifested, rather, in the relationship of institutions with authorities in terms of obtaining funds and creating some kind of inter-agency competition.