Proces kształtowania się samodzielności finansowej, a problem zadłużania się jednostek samorządu terytorialnego

Local governments are a link in the system of public finance. They are a public and legal entity, being autonomous and independent of the state. In the evolution of local governments’ financial independence it is of extreme importance that to some extent they are always dependent on the central government. The literature of the subject provides two extremely different concepts of a community model. One treats it as unit whose rights are modelled after natural rights of an individual. The other assumes that a community should be entitely subordinated to the state, as its founder is the state itself. These approaches are reflected in the attempt to identify limits on financial liabilities that can be assumed by local governments. Their budget deficit is typically financed from refundable sources and their types and the maximal debt are determined in Poland by the public finance act. Lenders attempting to determine a community’s creditworthiness are guided by their own practices. Both in the evaluation of local governments’ creditworthiness and when constructing the rules and limits on their allowable debt it is necessary to allow for the role and specificity of public finance.