Valuation Bases and Accounting System Entries in Financial Analysis of the Municipal Real Property

The paper introduces a conceptual framework for an accounting of the municipal real property, and defines a respective system of indicators. The development of this framework is seen as an important prerequisite for the efficient property management. It aims to overcome the lack or poor accessibility of the information, and thus to ensure the successful municipal real property management in a strategic context. The developing of the applied approach implies that accounting indicators are divided into three main groups – values, revenues, and costs. Beside the above mentioned classification, the municipal revenues and costs are classified also as existing and proposed. The existing indicators are defined by International Accounting Standards in public sector, and some of them are considered as being appropriate for the inclusion in the financial analysis as accounting system entries. The proposed indicators are perceived as appropriate to carry out a detailed analysis of the municipal property at a lower level of desegregations. The first two paragraphs explain the main bases for the municipal property valuation - historical cost, current price, market value, present value, with a special emphasis on the use of the historical value, and the types of valuation respectively. The next three paragraphs are concentrated mainly on the accounting indicators for the municipal property assessment. The sixth paragraph represents several major accounting bases - an accounting value, a carrying value, a market value, an accumulated depreciation, revenues from the sale of assets and services, costs by economic elements, revenues from future periods and costs for future periods, and revenues from other events and costs for other events. The seventh section presents a brief comparative analysis of accounting systems of 6 municipalities in South-Eastern Europe and the last paragraph highlights the identified “good practices”

Effectiveness of the Use and Management of Municipal Real Property in Bulgaria

The paper provides an assessment of the effectiveness of the use and management of municipal real property (MRP), using data gathered through 173 questionnaires, addressed to representatives of 39 municipalities in Bulgaria. The paper is structured as follows: The first section gives information about the municipalities and is based on the following criteria: evaluation of the conditions in the cities; appraisal of the financial situation of the municipalities, the main sources of funding, and the sources that should be used in order to improve the their finances; existence of the relevant planning instruments, etc. The second section focuses on MRP and refers to criteria such as: rating of different aspects of MRP; existence of MRP inventory, municipal strategy and municipal unit dealing exclusively with MRP; evaluation of the selling values and the level of actual MPR rents in comparison to market rents; outsourcing of MRP management functions; assessment of the interdependence between different units of the municipalities; analysis of the focus of the attention of the elected decision makers. The paper ends with some conclusions concerning the identified problems in the process of MRP management in Bulgaria

MULTI-CRITERIA ANALYSIS AS A TOOL FOR MUNICIPAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

In most decision making situations more than one criterion is involved and, as a consequence, confusion can arise if there is no logical and well structured decision-making process in place. The multi-criteria analysis (MCA) constitutes a tool that can help evaluate the relative importance of all criteria involved and reflect on their importance during project management and decision making. MCA is a management tool aiming at supporting decision makers faced with making numerous and conflicting evaluations by deriving a way to come to a compromise. This paper discusses the possibilities of applying MCA in the field of municipal property management, where the decision-makers have to find the most convenient destinations of municipal assets that can be used for various purposes such as: governmental, business, social use. In each case specific criteria and indicators are employed in the ranking and rating process, so as to get the corresponding weighted score. An application is also presented, as performed within a work package included in the project “Municipal Property Management in South- Eastern Cities (PROMISE)â€, aiming to develop a comprehensive system for municipal property classification for governmental use, social use and business use by means of criteria previously defined, processed by MCA operation. The resulted system is adapted to the strategic goals of the administrative authorities, contributing to an effective municipal property management by optimising and standardising the decision-making procedures. The framework created enables the municipalities to find an appealing combination between the use of properties for their own needs and for attracting investment and promoting sustainable development of their cities and regions. The project was initiated in 2009, being funded by the ERDF within the South-East Territorial Co-operation Programme. Keywords: multi-criteria analysis, criteria, indicators, ranking, municipal assets, strategic management

BARRIERS AND FUTURE POLICY DIRECTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE DEMAND AND ABSORPTION IN SOUTH AND EAST BULGARIA

The paper analyses SMEs competitiveness, innovation and knowledge networks using data gathered through a range of interactions with innovative SMEs including interviews and consultations with 50 innovative SMEs from a range of sectors in the region and a focus group with 8 managers of non-innovative SMEs. Survey results show that the region of South and East Bulgaria rely more on the tacit knowledge of their human resources rather than on their formal qualifications (codified knowledge). Bulgarian SMEs are facing mainly with problems of survival and business extension an still do put not enough emphasis on the role of knowledge to the firms’ competitiveness. Finding the appropriate policy initiatives to encourage firms to incorporate innovation strategy into the overall business development strategy is becoming a serious challenge for the government. A major factor hampering SMEs in carrying out R&D and innovation is the lack of financial resources. And there is still a large room for improvement and finding the appropriate mechanisms to support SMEs innovation and R&D invetsment. The uncertain demand for innovation product and services also appears to be a substantial factor hampering innovative activities in SMEs. This finding suggests that the general economic environment in the country does not stimulate the production of innovative products and services. Hence one of the avenues of promoting innovation is to convince SMEs that they will benefit from the results of their research efforts. The interviewed firms consider further elaboration of the system for business support and advice, improving physical infrastructure and allowing companies to locate in better equipped premises as the next step to form the core national regional innovation policy in the country.SMEs, innovations, R&D, knowledge demand