Inter-municipal Cooperation in Austria Status Quo & Developments Alexandra Schantl, KDZ-Centre for Public Administration, Vienna

Austria Key Information Austria is a federation of 9 provinces (“Bundesländer”) 2359 municipalities Vienna has a special regulation in the constitution and is province (“Bundesland”) and a municipality together

Structure of Municipalities Municipalities have between less than 100 and more than 1,6 Mio. (Vienna) inhabitants Nearly half of the 2357 municipalities have between 1.000 und 2.500 inhabitants and 84 % between 500 and 5.000 73 municipalities have more than 10.000 inhabitants, from these have 7 more than 50.000; the 2nd largest city is Graz (230.000)

Structure of Municipalities Every municipality must have a municipal council, a managing board and a mayor (Federal Constitution) The electoral period of the municipal councils is from 5 to 6 years (different legal regulations in each “Bundesland”) The number of members depends on the number of inhabitants Mayors are elected by the municipal council, in some provinces directly by the citizens

Own Municipal Competences 1 The self-government is part of the Federal Constitution. The most important topics are: appointment of the municipal bodies, appointment of the municipal staff local public safety administration; local events control; administration of municipal traffic areas; local traffic police; crops protection police; local market police;

Own Municipal Competences 2 local sanitary police, especially in the field of emergency and first aid services, as well as matters pertaining to deaths and burial; public decency; local building police, excluding federal-owned buildings which serve public purposes; local fire control; local development (environmental) planning; public services for extrajudicial settlement of disputes; debtors’ sale of goods;

Own Municipal Competences 3 economic activities like: waste water and waste water Energy (not always) municipal housing leisure facilities The supervisory authority in the provinces can only become active in case of unlawful activities of a municipality.

Delegated Competences Implement and execute duties related to state administration, which are assigned: elections plebiscites and referendums Citizenship issues: municipal records of all persons of Austrian nationality and the register of marriages, births and deaths domicile registration protection of water and waterways safety precautions against diseases statistical surveys

Inter-municipal Cooperation Status Quo Long tradition in inter-municipal cooperation Not fully recorded Different reasons to co-operate (legal obligation versus voluntary initiatives) Generally all municipal tasks/services can be carried out inter-municipally

Inter-municipal Cooperation Status Quo The support of inter-municipal cooperation differs from province to province both in money terms and non-monetary services. In general only the developement/ establishment and management of an inter-municipal cooperation is public co-financed, not the cooperation-activities itself.

Cooperation fields Most inter-communal cooperation in the following areas: Supply and disposal (e.g. water and waste) Regional developement and tourism Sport and leisure infrastructure (swimming pools, sport halls, event centres..) Social services (social welfare associations, retirement homes..)

Cooperation fields Schools (elementary and middle schools, residential accomodation for pupils) Single governing powers areas (municipal housing inspectorate, municipal registry of births, marriages and deaths…) Internal administrative services like purchases, accounting… Very limited cooperation in the area of rescue and fire services

Forms of Cooperation Cooperation form depends on the tasks and duties Range from informal and non or small institutionalized cooperation until strong/high institutionalized cooperation

Forms of Cooperation Source: Wirth, Matschek: Interkommunale Zusammenarbeit, 2005; KDZ 2011.

Examples www.verwaltungskooperation.at Adventure Swimming Area Frutzau INKOBA

Developments Increasing awareness of the importance of inter-municipal cooperation Increasing willingness to cooperate and decreasing competition between the single municipalities Inter-municipal cooperation or merching of municipalities? Focus on „city-region“ cooperation

Thank you very much for your attention! Contact: Alexandra Schantl KDZ-Centre for Public Administration Research Tel. +43 1 8923492-37 Email schantl@kdz.or.at