The Rational Assignment Of Resources In The Romanian Public Sector. From Failure To Possible Success

In the conditions of the ongoing global economic crisis, the scarcity of resources exercises an additional pressure on all organizations. In Romania, the public sector organizations, less flexible and more reluctant to change than their private counterparts, were more seriously damaged by the crises, particularly due to the insufficient involvement of the local public administration in assessing the quality of projects financed from the already limited resources. Thus, the rational assignment and use of resources, especially of those of financial nature, becomes an imperative requirement for the public sector, in its goal to satisfy the citizens’ needs. The objective of the paper is to analyze the legislative framework regarding public expenditure and to identify the principles and tools of rational assignment of resources, as well as of indicators available for the experts to assess the efficiency level of the rational assignment process. This analysis will be followed by a series of interviews with experts within the local public administration, in order to analyze the extent to which they actually use legislation and the instruments available in their budgeting process.In addition, the research will use instruments such as content analysis, respectively the comparative analysis, in order to identify the problems occurred in the process of assigning public resources, pin-pointing the divergences between the legal framework and instruments and the actual implementation thereof. The analyses will allow us to outline perspectives for the improvement and increased efficiency of public expenditure, by means of the rational choice theory instruments. The conclusion of the paper will present a recommendations for policy improvement in this field, for increasing the efficiency of rational assignment of public resources.