Specific Grants from the State Budget to Local Government Tasks in the Light of the Constitutional Rule of Adequacy

Abstract

The rule of adequacy of financial resources to the local government’s responsibilities is one of the basic rule of local government finance, which was expressed in Polish Constitution and in the European Charter on Local Self Government. Because of the fact, that the system of own resources of Polish local governments was not reformed since 2004 – any amendment causes decrease of their transferable resources (grants, subsidies) should be regarded as the inconsistent with the rule of adequacy and therefore – unconstitutional. Such nature has the new 80% limit for the amount of the specific grant from the State Budget to local government own tasks, which was introduced by Article 128 of Public Finance Act. The paper presents argumentation proving the above thesis and also raises an increasing problem of inadequacy of subsidies for the central government’s task delegated to local authorities.