An analysis on the financial structure of metropolitan municipalities: The case of Aydın metropolitan municipality

Municipal organization is a very important organization in terms of meeting the needs of the city and its citizens. As a matter of fact, municipalities carry out their activities directly by local governments at points where the center cannot reach the local. In other words, municipalities operate to meet the needs of the city and its citizens. Although municipalities are elements of the modern management system, their roots go back to the past. In addition, municipalities play a major role in the development of democracy. The financial structures of municipalities, which are at such an important point in human life, are also important. As a matter of fact, municipalities exist with their incomes and expenses. In this sense, they are in a position to generate income to carry out their activities. In the same way, they create a payment budget for the expenditures that must be made in order to carry out the activities and to meet the needs. In this context, municipalities choose to announce their financial structuring to the public through the annual reports they regularly prepare from year to year. The fact that the municipal organization informs the public at regular intervals and in detail also shows that it adheres to the principle of transparency, which is an important principle of the new public management approach. In this context, the financial structure of Aydın Metropolitan Municipality, which provides services to meet the needs of the public as a metropolitan organization, has been examined. As material, the activity reports presented to the public on the municipality's website were analyzed. Changes in income and expenditure budgets between 2019 and 2022 were observed by analyzing the increases and decreases in expenditure and income items over the years. As a result, despite the increase in the income and expenses of Aydın Metropolitan Municipality throughout the year, it was observed that a generally positive financial statement emerged and there were no major deviations from the budget estimates.