扛不起的未來：地方財政困境之研究—嘉義縣鄉鎮市案例分析

Abstract

我國政府財政困境，不僅是中央的問題，地方政府尤其嚴重。近來，部分鄉鎮市政府財源逐漸枯竭，甚至連最基本的人事費都出了問題，似乎已到了山窮水盡的地步。由於鄉鎮市政府乃是基層政務的主要推動者，其財政健全與否攸關地方政務能否順利推動，重要性不容小覷。再者，對處於相同環境下的地方政府，其個別鄉鎮市的財政能力卻有不同的展現，主要因素何在，頗值得深入探究。鑑此，本研究嘗試利用嘉義縣各鄉鎮市八十～九十年度預決算資料，並依人口數分成三群，透過其橫向及縱向資料之對比分析，從「收入面」、「支出面」及「虛列預算」等面向，藉以釐清地方財政惡化及個別鄉鎮市財政差異的真實面貌。在結論中，本文認為民選首長的施政需求必須被滿足，是民主制度下的必然結果，但在財源明顯不足下，地方政府並無浮濫支出的條件，也是必須正視的政治現實，因此中央政府有責任提供良好的遊戲規則，建立嚴格的監督及協調機制。最後，本文並針對現行地方財政困境提出幾點改革芻議，主要包括：（1）滿足地方基本財政需求，以強化地方財政責任，（2）加強地方財政資訊揭露，增加社會對地方財政監督力量，（3）中央應運用現有法令，增強對地方財政紀律的管制，（4）人事員額納入統籌分配款考核指標，（5）統籌分配款制度應與地方財政紀律考核結合，（6）運用「基準財政需求」考核地方財政紀律，（7）鄉鎮市長改為官派，納入縣府統籌規劃，走出地方財政困局。

Both central and local governments are suffering financial difficulty, particularly township-level public authorities. Local governments have generally encountered severe financial deficit. They even have no money to pay their staff. Since township-level play a crucial role of provision of basic public services for local community, their financial shortage has weaken function of public services. That financial capability and shortage of local governments varies under similar context is worth to examine. This paper, employing budgeting data during 1991-2001, tries to examine financial shortage and deficit of 18 township-level public authorities of Chia-Yi County through an analysis on revenue, outlay, and void budget, and compare their similarities and differences. The key findings of this paper suggest that elected politicians are always overspended in order to response to various demands of voters under pursuit of reelelcted goal. However, the financial distribution between central and local government is unfavorable to township-level public authorities. Politician in local governments disregard their financial difficulties; as a result, their financial deficit is indispensable. Finally, this paper proposes seven suggestions for financial management of local governments: (1) strengthen financial responsibility in order to achieve basic financial need, (2) strengthen financial disclosure for fortifying social fiscal monitoring, (3) strengthen central regulatory power of financial discipline, (4) personnel as key indicators of financial distribution system, (5) financial distribution should be linked with local financial discipline, (6)employing basic financial need to audit local financial discipline, (7) executive of township-level public authorities should be appointed instead of election.