Presentation of public services in electronic environment: Applicability of e-budget in municipalities

With the development of information and communication technologies, the service delivery of both the private and public sectors has started to change. The electronic delivery of public services emerged after the use of computers and the internet, and with the widespread use of these technologies, e-Services have increased. Along with global technological advancements, Turkey's "e-transformation" began in the 2000s. In 2008, the "e-Government Gateway" project was launched, consolidating e-Services under a single platform. Governments offer various public services, one of which is budget operations. With the transition to e-Services, the budget preparation and implementation processes of institutions have also moved to the electronic environment. In Turkey, public institutions under central administration carry out budget processes through the e-Budget system, while different applications are seen in local administrations. In this context, while central and local administrations under the general government budget use different budgeting applications, differences are also observed among municipalities. Furthermore, in line with the basic principles of unity, aggregation, and uniformity in budgeting, a general government budget is created, and it would be beneficial for administrations within this structure to perform their operations through a single electronic budget system. The main aim of this study is to demonstrate the applicability of the e-Budget system in municipalities in Turkey, focusing on the budgeting process, an area that lacks sufficient research despite the abundance of studies on e-Government. The research aims to assess the feasibility of implementing a unified electronic budgeting system across all public institutions, particularly municipalities.