The findings on the budgetary transparency of Croatia's 576 local units show the average transparency has improved, from 1.8 to 3.52 documents published over the past four cycles.
Counties have shown the biggest transparency, with 4.9 documents published on average, followed by towns with 4 and municipalities with 3.3.
Transparency is measured by the number of key budgetary documents published on local units' websites, in this case five documents - on the annual execution of the 2016 budget, the six-month execution of the 2017 budget, the draft 2018 budget, the 2018 budget, and the 2018 budgetary guide for citizens.
IJF researcher Mihaela Bronic said plenty of municipalities and towns should make an effort to publish all five documents. She noted that 25 municipalities had not published any and that 41 municipalities and two towns had published one.
This year's IJF awards for the publication of those five documents went to 17 counties, 54 towns and 107 municipalities. For the first time, there was no town without at least one document published. As of this year, all municipalities too have official websites.
Director Katarina Ott said the IJF was pleased that more and more local units published more and more budgetary documents. She added, however, that the publication of only five did not entail a local unit's absolute transparency or accountability but was just the first step to higher levels of transparency.