Abstract:

The state budget is the primary financial plan for allocating funds collected by the central government. Its scope results from decentralisation processes and the power and economic resources distribution between the central government and local authorities. It also depends on the objectives of the state's socio-economic policy and the scale of state interventionism—the scope of applied interventionism and decentralisation changes with the change of successive government cabinets. The state budget, therefore, has an allocative function, a redistributive and stabilising function, and a management and control function (Podstawka, 2017; Owsiak, 2017). Adequate planning of financial resources is an element of public management processes, and allocating public resources affects the economy's efficiency (Skuza, 2021). This is particularly important in countries with a high share of the state in the economy, and Poland still belongs to such countries. According to the Ministry of Finance, in 2021, the state budget was responsible for 31% of revenues of the public finance sector and 34% of the sector's expenditures (Justification..., 2021). Consequently, the state budget is still essential for allocating financial resources in Poland.