Budget Transparency in Local Governments: A Research on the Metropolitan Municipalities and Special Provincial Administrations

Budget transparency is known as the transparency of central government budget, and researches are made in this regard. Budget transparency is also an important issue to consider for local governments as much as central governments. This paper aims to research the budget transparency of local governments. The research includes the members of the planning and budget commissions of 16 metropolitan municipalities and 16 special provincial administrations. The data was collected through a quessionnarie. 220 questionnaires were sent to the participants by mail, and the analysis was conducted on only 85 quessionnarie responses suitable for the data analysis. In the study, it has been found that local governments have achieved adequate level of transparency in their budget processes, but there have been problems related to sharing the budgetary information with the public.