The Institute of Contemporary Development organized a roundtable discussion, which completed the series of debates about local self-government.
 
The discussion participants included Professor Evgeny Gontmakher, Board member of the Institute of Contemporary Development and Head of the Center for Social Policy of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Boris Makarenko, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Development; S. Prokhorov, Expert of the Audit Chamber of the Russian Federation; Olga Motyakova, Head of the Self-Government Executive Office of the Federation Council of the RF Federal Assembly; academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences; federal officials; public representatives; experts in local self-government issues, etc.
 
The participants discussed the report on the “Financial and Economic Basis for Local Self-government: Methods for Strengthening the Resource Base of Municipal Bodies”. The report was prepared by the Institute of Contemporary Development as part of the project “Analysis and Prospects of Development of Local Self-Government in Russia”. Investigations into the legislative foundations, societal-political possibilities, and the financial-economic base of local self-government in Russia were all investigated and researched for the report.
 
The discussed issues were the following:
 
- formation of the resource base for local self-government: opportunities and limitations;
 
- approaches to financial support of municipal bodies: financial guarantees and economic incentives;
 
- tax sources of income of local budgets: the current list and the necessity of its correction;
 
- intergovernmental fiscal relations in the system of local self-government: methods for improvement; and
 
- problems of municipal property as an important resource of local self-government;
 
In the discussions the participants discussed the delineation of the competences and authorities of municipal bodies, and evaluated specific characteristics of allocating different competences to questions of local settlements, municipal districts and town circuits.
 
As the result of the series of roundtables on local self-government, recommendations are to be prepared for the Government of the Russian Federation on state politics in the area of local self-administration.