local Authorities : 1 – Status : 0. A report of the Court of auditors, published on July 6, highlights the much better financial situation of the community compared to that of the French State. At the end of the year 2019, the accounts were rather favourable for the communities, which allows them to address the crisis caused by the pandemic coronavirus in much better conditions that the French State. In 2019, for the third consecutive year, the financial situation of the communes, departments and regions has been a nice improvement. Depending on the details of the Court of auditors in its annual report on local finance, the level of expenditure has been content, in particular on the wage bill.

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In fact, the communities deal with "in the year 2020 and the crisis related to the epidemic of coronavirus in a better situation than the State," she notes. The communities have committed in the past year 186 billion euros of operating expenses, $ 64 billion of capital investment, and gross savings rose by 8.8 %. The judges emphasize in particular the dynamism of their tax revenues (+ 3.1 percent) for a total of 150,7 billion euros in 2019.

notable differences between the departments

This overall improvement however results in marked differences according to the categories of communities and within each of them. The overall financial situation of the bloc communal (communes and inter-communal groups) " seems to be the most favorable." Many municipalities, especially small-scale deal, however the crisis " in conditions that are already difficult and could see their financial situation deteriorate as early as 2020 ".

Situation heterogeneous also departments. One of the most populous of 500,000 to one million inhabitants, is improving, but to a lesser extent than that of the other strata due to the growth of their social spending. Finance departments should also "be strongly affected by the crisis," by 2020, " both in expenses (risk of increase in social spending] in revenue."

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Finally, the increase in operating expenses of the regions remains higher than in other communities, and varies significantly from one to the other. The device of contractualisation between the State and communities put in place by 2018 to reduce their operating expenditure has also been suspended due to the epidemic. The Court of auditors will publish the end of 2020, a first analysis of the impact of the crisis on communities in the second volume of his report.