Municipal financial control: trends and prospects

Subject. The article considers changes in the system of municipal financial control organization in the context of the ongoing reform of local government organization in the Russian Federation. The purpose of the study is to identify the main trends in the development of municipal financial control and their characteristics.Methodology. The following methods of analysis were used in the work: statistical, data synthesis, formal legal, system-structural, comparative legal, as well as the general scientific dialectical method of cognition.Main results. The trends of maintaining the ratio of the share of municipal audit and accounts chambers to the total number of municipalities, improving the forms and methods of municipal financial control, and automating it through the introduction of modern information technologies are identified, which increases the transparency of the budget process at all levels of public authority. Conclusions. Summing up the trends analysis in the municipal financial control development, it should be noted such a quality of the organization system as sustainability. Although, in the context of the territorial foundations of local self-government reform, there has been a sharp decrease in the number of municipalities, the ratio of the share of control and accounting bodies of municipalities to the total number of municipalities remains at the level of 12%. The forms (preliminary) and methods of organizing municipal financial control are being improved, and the participation of individual subjects (citizens) in its implementation is being intensified. The introduction of modern information technologies, on the one hand, ensures transparency of the budget process, and, on the other, poses new challenges in the training and advanced training of specialists engaged in control activities.