Assessment of Priorities for the Use of Program Budget Expenditures in the Regions of the Russian Federation

This article is devoted to the search for an answer to the question whether the promotion of socio-economic development is among the key priorities of using the budget potential of the subjects of the Russian Federation. To solve this problem, the study has developed methodological tools for assessing the use of the budget potential of the region. Mainly, it includes justification of priorities and directions of using the budget potential of the region, determination of the proportion of priorities and its dynamics, calculation of the importance of priorities based on a modified formula of their elasticity according to the maximum achieved budget potential of the region. In practice, the application of the developed methodological tools will make it possible to measure and adjust the ratio of directions and priorities for the use of the budget potential of the region, depending on the goals and conditions of the development of the social sphere and the economy. According to the developed tools, as well as on the basis of official reporting data from the Federal Treasury, the Federal State Statistics Service, and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, an approbation diagnosis of the use of budget potential was carried out on the example of 85 subjects of the Russian Federation over a 15-year period from 2006 to 2020. It was determined that 7/10 of the realized budget potential of the subjects of the Russian Federation was used for the current priority, 2/10 — for transfer, 1/10 — for investment. The empirical results obtained in the work confirmed the hypothesis that the use of budget resources of regions for short-term stabilization purposes is more important than financing longterm stimulation of socio-economic development of territories. According to the results of the approbation, ways to increase the efficiency of using the budget potential of the region to stimulate its socio-economic development are identified.