Abstract:

The study aimed to assess the efficiency of rural municipalities' expenditures on educational tasks and create a typology of communes related to this issue. Rural communes often struggle with limited financial resources, which negatively affects the quality of educational infrastructure and the availability of teachers and, in the long run, translates into the quality of human capital in these areas. For this reason, analysing the efficiency of budget expenditure should be a fundamental tool for rationalising public finance management in each local government. The efficiency was estimated using the classic input-oriented DEA model. The calculations show that the average value of the efficiency index (Eff) in 2012-2022 was 0.8101, with the coefficient of variation ranging from 11.4% to 13.2% and the average range of 0.5767. In the group of 1,513 rural communes included in the study, more than ¾ never showed Eff = 1, and the set of units that were efficient in each year included only six gminas. As part of an in-depth analysis, the group of 1,507 local governments was divided into five clusters using the k-means method. The separated groups differed in efficiency and the values of inputs and outputs. The highest value of the efficiency coefficient Eff was in group 1 (average from 2012-2022 = 0.9256), while the lowest was in group 5 (0.6638). Further research should focus on determinants of the efficiency of rural communes' expenditure on educational tasks. It is worth paying attention to issues such as local government investment policy, demographic processes or government decisions.