The Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast


28.05.2009. XXVIII Session of the Tomsk Oblast State Duma


XXVIII Session of the Tomsk Oblast State Duma
42 items on the agenda, including 29 bills.
For the first time the session was attended by three ordinary citizens of Tomsk Oblast. It became possible after the Oblast Duma Rules of Procedure were amended to set forth the procedure of participation in the Oblast Duma sessions and Committee meetings for ordinary citizens, including representatives of organizations, public associations, public agencies, and local authorities.

In the first reading the deputies approved new articles in the Law "On social support for physically challenged people in Tomsk Oblast". The articles list objects of social and transport infrastructure to be equipped with special facilities for the disabled. Installation costs shall be borne by owners of the infrastructure objects. The deputies formed a group which shall refine the Law for the second reading and ensure its effectiveness. There are 63,500 physically challenged people in Tomsk Oblast and often they are not provided with open access to community facilities and other infrastructure objects.

In the first reading the deputies adopted amendments to the Oblast Law "On providing local governing bodies with special authorities in the area of social support for orphan children and children without parental care as well as people who grew up as orphans or without parental care" to delegate the authority to provide lump sum payments to the graduates of municipal educational institutions for children without parental care to the local level. The payments will be allocated through subventions to the local governing bodies. The amount budgeted for that purpose in 2009 totals 13.8m rubles. In 2009 the above mentioned educational institutions will graduate 427 students. All municipal entities of Tomsk Oblast have a favorable view of the bill.

A number of articles of the Oblast Law "On budgeting process in Tomsk Oblast" were brought into line with the Russian Budget Code. For example, the deputies eliminated deadlines for submission of the documents required to prepare a draft Oblast budget. The process shall start upon issue of a legislative act of the Governor of Tomsk Oblast which shall determine timeframes for all actions involved in regional budgeting. The Governor was granted a right to submit for consideration by the Tomsk Oblast State Duma bills on changes in dates of entry into force of certain provisions of Oblast Laws which do not imply financing. The amendments also provide a possibility to exclude planned numbers from the law on the regional budget if in the current financial year revenues and inflows from the sources to finance budget deficit decrease by more than 5% compared to the approved numbers for the revenues and inflows.

The deputies made corrections to the regional budget which concerned the government guarantee program. Tomsk House Building Company was granted government guarantees in an amount of 150m rubles to facilitate gaining credits required to finish construction of almost complete housing. Government guarantees of 13.5m rubles were also granted to the Football Club "Tom". It is important that the corrections do not impact the basic items of the budget such as spending, revenues, and deficit which remained the same.

According to the report of Sergey Nikitenko, Chairman of the Audit Chamber of the Tomsk Oblast State Duma, in 2008 the Chamber kept as priority proper functioning of the unified system of control over formulation and execution of the Oblast budget and the budget of Tomsk Territorial Compulsory Health Insurance Fund at all stages of the budgeting process. The Chamber auditors also closely monitored management and usage of regional public property.
In the reporting year the Chamber carried out 30 field audits and expert and analytical reviews. The audited amounts totaled 17.7bn rubles. Financial violations revealed by the auditors totaled 779.7m rubles. The overall amount recovered to the regional budget in the reporting year totaled 69m rubles. The recovery process is still under way; it is planned to deliver 53.8m rubles more to the budget system.
On the basis of audits and analytical examinations carried out by the Audit Chamber in 2008, a number of Tomsk Oblast Laws and Tomsk Oblast Administration resolutions and decrees were amended to ensure more effective spending of public funds.

The deputies approved the Law "On emergency rescue services and teams in Tomsk Oblast". The Law provides a regulatory framework for such services, namely the rules of procedure for the executive authorities of Tomsk Oblast to establish such services and teams, maintenance conditions and other issues. The Law also sets forth legal guarantees for budgetary funding of activities on civil protection in emergency situations.

In the first reading the bill "On charity, patronage, and sponsorship in Tomsk Oblast" was passed. The bill lays out measures of state support for benefactors and patrons of arts and provides a framework for public financing of charity programs developed by charity organizations on a competitive basis as well as creation of advisory and coordination councils under executive bodies. A major obstacle to the creation of the bill was the fact that the notion of “patronage” has never been defined at the federal level as opposed to sponsorship and charity. Most Oblast deputies believe that patronage can be defined by means of`two major features. First, it is gratuitous financial aid and the patron does not expect to obtain anything in return for the donation nor do they count on tax benefits. Second, any kind of patronage sets as a priority financial assistance to cultural activity and organizations as well as people involved. The bill is still under development and the list of patronage focus areas is being discussed and reviewed.

In two readings the deputies adopted amendments to the Law "On agreements of Tomsk Oblast and public authorities of Tomsk Oblast on maintenance of international and foreign economic ties and participation of Tomsk Oblast and public authorities of Tomsk Oblast in international information exchange". Originators of the amendments are convinced that timely (ten days prior to an event) notification of the Department of International and Regional Relations of the Tomsk Oblast Administration on forthcoming events with international participation can help avoid violations of laws governing international cooperation of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

In the first reading the deputies passed the bill on the system of documents on strategic planning and accountability management of Tomsk Oblast. The new law is required to provide standards for this system which are needed to support the rampant development of the public sector and management strategies. The bill will formalize the system of documents on strategic planning and accountability management of Tomsk Oblast, set basic definitions, create a unified system of legal relations, put in order the sequence of decisions on development of the documents on strategic planning and accountability management, pose uniform requirements to the content of such documents and the procedure for their development, endorsement and approval. Other Russian regions are now challenged by the same task. Around 30 Russian constituent entities currently apply such laws but only three of them are aligned with the federal legislation.

In the second reading the deputies passed the bill "On financing of provision of gas supply to the housing facilities in Tomsk Oblast". The bill was developed by the Standing Committee on Housing Maintenance and Utilities which is part of the Duma Economic Policy Committee. The bill enables subsidies from the regional to local budgets to secure co-financing of works to provide gas supply to apartment houses and individual dwellings regardless of the type of ownership. In the previous years funds allocated from the budget for that purpose were spent on construction of transmission pipelines running to many settlements of Tomsk Oblast. However, many consumers still do not have access to gas because they cannot afford tie-ins and supply lines to their gas facilties. The bill was developed to help citizens finance gas supply activities from regional and local budgets.

In the first reading the deputies adopted the Oblast Law "On Keeping Domestic and Stray Animals". The Law lays out general requirements to keeping and registration of domestic and stray animals, capture of stray animals, control over numbers of domestic and stray animals, and walking of domestic animals. In order to keep domestic animals on the record, the Law provides for mandatory registration of dogs regardless of the breed. An executive public authority of Tomsk Oblast authorized in veterinary issues shall place details of a dog on an appropriate register and issue a dog passport to the owner. Registration of domestic animals other than dogs is optional. Also, according to the Law, a register of stray animals will be kept by a special stray animal control organization. The document will be prepared for the second reading by a specially established work group.

An article was added to the Law "On basic guarantees of children’s rights in Tomsk Oblast” under the title "On protection of children’s rights to physical, intellectual, psychological, spiritual and moral development". The new article aims at creating proper environment for the development of under age children. In accordance with the amended Law, parents are required to arrange spare time of their children in a way which would best suit their age. For example, parents should keep- minors under age 18 away from places where sex and/or alcohol products are sold; keep minors under age 16 away from public places at night or accompany- them or make sure that they are watched by people who organize events with participation of children.

In case of violation of these norms, parents, individual entrepreneurs, and people organizing events with participation of children will be fined.
Not so long ago the State Duma of Tomsk Oblast was the first in the Russian Federation to restrict the minors’ movements at night. The measure helped significantly reduce offences committed by minors and against minors. Now this legislative experience of Tomsk Oblast is shared throughout Russia.

Finally, the deputies added a new responsibility to the Tomsk Oblast Code of Administrative Offences which shall be imposed for "carrying or drinking low-alcohol drinks or beer in places of public entertainment of citizens with children and other public places". The list of such public places and their areas will be determined by local governing bodies. Those who violate this ban will be fined. It is not a secret that the Administration of the President of Russia is already considering the issue of imposing such a ban throughout the whole country.


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