'Administrative System Reorganization… Emphasis on Feasibility and Effectiveness'

The 'Special Act on Local Administrative System Reorganization' submitted on the 3rd as a primary sponsor bill by Rep. Kwon Kyung-seok (Grand National Party, Sancheong City, South Gyeongsangnam-do), who serves as a standing member of the National Assembly's Administration and Security Committee, places emphasis on feasibility and effectiveness, including consolidation of cities and counties and local governments, and functional conversion of provinces.

● System Reorganization through Consolidation of Local Governments and Provincial Function Conversion

The core of the special bill is largely composed of ▲territorial expansion through consolidation of cities and counties, and functional conversion of provinces, abolition of autonomous districts in metropolitan cities and consolidation of autonomous districts in special cities ▲establishment of joint committees between existing city, county, and district consolidation promotion committees and consolidated local governments, consensus-building and resident referendums.

Additionally, ▲allowing consolidated cities, counties, and districts to autonomously establish administrative tiers such as cities, counties, or branch offices, and ▲establishing grounds for reorganization of a large-scale administrative system by expanding the current jurisdiction of metropolitan cities and provinces amount to four major elements.

Under this bill, provinces will establish consolidated cities through consolidation of cities and counties for territorial expansion, and cities and counties within the consolidated city will be converted to administrative cities and counties, creating a single-tier autonomy structure.

Autonomous districts of special cities will be integrated into 4 to 5 consolidated autonomous districts, with existing autonomous districts converted to administrative districts, and metropolitan cities will remain as they are with existing autonomous districts and counties converted to administrative districts.

In this case, autonomous affairs will be transferred to consolidated cities, and provinces will be integrated into special local administrative agencies handling national delegation affairs, functioning in a manner dedicated solely to national affairs. While the province as an autonomous tier structure is abolished, a new province will be established as a regional administrative agency.

Regional administrative agencies at the provincial level, which have completed functional conversion to focus on national affairs, will be converted into large-scale regional administrative agencies through consolidation among regional administrative agencies.

Regarding this consolidation method, Rep. Kwon stated that during the discussion of reorganization, complex interests of various political parties and local governments make it difficult to find clear solutions, and amid proposals for impractical measures such as abolition of metropolitan cities, this is aimed at feasible and effective reorganization.

● Local Decentralization Must Be a Prerequisite

Rep. Kwon emphasized that strengthening regional competitiveness is essential to enhancing national competitiveness, and that the key tasks for this are local decentralization and reorganization of the local administrative system, clearly establishing that local decentralization is a prerequisite for administrative system reorganization.

To this end, he pointed out that to increase the proportion of local autonomous affairs from the current 27% to 40%, all administrative affairs should be divided into national affairs and local autonomous affairs, and agency delegation affairs should be abolished.

Furthermore, he proposed that in parallel with integration of special local administrative agencies, national affairs classified as local affairs should be transferred to local governments, and that financial autonomy, expanded local legislative authority and educational autonomy, and introduction of an autonomous police system should be implemented.

Rep. Kwon emphasized, "Reorganization of the local administrative system should focus on establishing autonomous and self-sufficient systems for local governments, and for an autonomous system in which local governments can handle their own affairs with their own authority and responsibility, local decentralization must first be a prerequisite."

Additionally, ordinances are to be enacted to specify the organization, composition, and scope of duties of eup, myeon, and dong, thereby promoting these as autonomous bodies by the local residents and fostering vitalization of resident autonomy.

● "Resolving Typical High-Cost, Low-Efficiency Structure"

Rep. Kwon pointed out that local governments show population disparities ranging from 30,000 to 1 million people, representing a 30 to 40-fold difference, and that the current administrative system represents a typical high-cost, low-efficiency structure.

Furthermore, even as the overall population declines, personnel and budgets continue to increase, and inefficient operations of organizations and facilities regardless of local government and population size, as well as duplication of unit affairs between regional and basic-level local governments, are causing social waste, thus necessitating system reorganization.

Additionally, the special bill provides for establishment of a Local Government Consolidation Promotion Committee that explores and promotes consolidation plans for cities, counties, and districts, and a Consolidation Promotion Joint Committee (to be established within 30 days after territorial expansion) that determines the names, office locations, and consolidation timing of consolidated local governments.

The bill also includes provisions for the consensus-building process regarding establishment of consolidated local governments and implementation of national referendums for consolidation discussions, as well as clauses on establishment of administrative agencies for consolidated local governments.

Moreover, the special bill explicitly provides special provisions for consolidated local governments, including ▲the principle of no disadvantage (exclusion of administrative, financial, and resident burden disadvantages) ▲establishment of metropolitan cities (when consolidated city population exceeds 1 million) ▲budget exceptions (the first budget of consolidated metropolitan city is the sum total of pre-consolidation local government budgets), among others.