Promotion of Local Government Merger Act

The purpose of this Act is to promote the merger of local governments and structuring of the administrative division of the territory resulting in an increase of the administrative capacity of local governments and their ability to prepare successful project applications, improvement of the accessibility and quality of public services offered by local governments within their territory and improvement in the cooperative ability of local governments.

(1) This Act establishes the principles for merger of local governments and the principles for promoting such merger, the requirements for the accessibility of public services offered by local governments after the merger, the bases for allocation of grants from the state budget for covering the costs related to merger, and the principles for compensating for the decrease of state budget allocations after the merger.

(2) The bases of and procedure for alteration of the administrative-territorial organisation and boundaries, and change of names of administrative units are provided by the Territory of Estonia Administrative Division Act.

(1) For the purposes of this Act, merger of local governments means the creation of a new administrative unit on the basis of two or more current local governments or the increase of one administrative unit as a result of uniting two or more local governments.

(2) For the purposes of this Act, transfer of a territorial area means the inclusion of a part of the territory of a local government bordering a a local government participating in the merger into the composition of the local government participating in the merger.

(1) A local government formed as the result of a merger shall guarantee accessibility and quality of public services to the residents of the rural municipality or city at a level at least equal to the level before the merger of the local governments.

(2) The provision of public services shall be organised in all the settlement units where, before the merger, rural municipality or city governments were situated.

(3) [Repealed - RT I 2008, 51, 285 - entry into force 01.01.2009]

Right of local governments to merge

(1)

(2)

(3) When granting the investment support from the state budget or structural funds, the merger of local governments shall be taken into consideration, if possible, as one additional and preferred circumstance for a grant, unless this contradicts the objectives of a measure.

(4)

(5)

(6) If the size of the grant per local authority formed as the result of a merger allocated from the state budget in the year following the year of the merger is smaller than the merged local authorities would have individually received in total in the year following the year of the merger under the valid terms and conditions of the allocation of grants, the decrease in the grant caused by the merger shall be compensated. The compensation calculated as a lump sum in the year following the year of the merger shall be added to the amount of the grant within eight years following the year of the merger.

(7) The mechanism of transfer of funds established by subsection (6) of this section shall not be applied if the grant calculated based on subsection (6) of this section allocated from the state budget decrease below 0.5 % of the total amount of the operating revenue of the budgets for the year of merger of the merging local authorities from which the case-by-case allocations from the state budget have been deducted. This subsection shall not apply with regard to the educational support specified in subsection 82 (3) of the Basic Schools and Upper Secondary Schools Act.

(8) The provision of the compensation for the decrease in the grant caused by the merger, which is specified in subsection (6) of this section, shall cease if the provision of the corresponding grant from the state budget is ceased during the compensation period.

(9) If during the period of the provision of the compensation for the decrease in the grant caused by the merger a local authority created as a result of the merger does not comply with the conditions for the receipt of the grant and does not receive the grant some year, the compensation specified in subsection (6) of this section shall not be paid this year.

(1) [Repealed - RT I 2008, 51, 285 - entry into force 01.01.2009]

(2) [Repealed - RT I 2008, 51, 285 - entry into force 01.01.2009]

(3) [Repealed - RT I, 19.03.2013, 1 - entry into force 20.03.2013]

(4) [Repealed - RT I, 19.03.2013, 1 - entry into force 20.03.2013]

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[Omitted from this text.]