BOOK VI: FINANCIAL AND ACCOUNTING PROVISIONS

However, for the application of article L. 1612-5, a budget whose operating section includes or recovers a surplus and whose investment section is in real balance, after recovery for each of the sections of the results appearing in the administrative account of the previous financial year, is not considered to be in imbalance.

As from the 1997 financial year, for the application of article L. 1612-5, the municipal budget is not considered to be out of balance if the operating section includes or includes a surplus brought forward by decision of the municipal council or if the investment section includes a surplus, in particular after the required depreciation and provisions have been entered.

The primary budget of the local authority is sent to the State representative in the department no later than fifteen days after the deadline set for its adoption by articles L. 1612-2 and L. 1612-9 Failing this, the provisions of article L. 1612-2 shall apply.

From the time the matter is referred to the Regional Audit Chamber and until the procedure provided for in Article L. 1612-5 has been completed, the deliberative body may not take a decision on budgetary matters, except for the decision provided for in the second paragraph of Article L. 1612-5 and for the application of article L. 1612-12. When the budget of a territorial authority has been settled and made…

The transmission of the local authority’s budget to the regional audit chamber under articles L. 1612-5 and L. 1612-14 has the effect of suspending the implementation of this budget until the end of the procedure. However, the provisions of article L. 1612-1. In addition, expenditure on the investment section of this budget may be committed, liquidated and mandated up to a limit of half of the appropriations entered in this…

Subject to compliance with the provisions of articles L. 1612-1, L. 1612-9 and L. 1612-10, amendments may be made to the budget by the deliberative body, up to the end of the financial year to which they apply. Within a period of twenty-one days following the end of the financial year, the deliberative body may, in addition, make amendments to the budget to adjust the appropriations in the operating section…

The local authority’s accounts are approved by a vote of the deliberative body on the administrative account presented by the mayor, the president of the departmental council or the president of the regional council, as appropriate, after the management account drawn up by the local authority’s accounting officer has been submitted by 1 June of the year following the financial year. The vote of the deliberative body approving the accounts…

The administrative account is sent to the State representative in the department no later than fifteen days after the deadline set for its adoption by articles L. 1612-9 and L. 1612-12. Failing this, the State representative will refer the matter, in accordance with the procedure set out in article L. 1612-5, the chambre régionale des comptes (regional audit office) for the local authority’s next approved budget.

When the accounts of a territorial authority show a deficit in the implementation of the budget, after verification of the accuracy of the revenue and expenditure entries, equal to or greater than 10% of the revenue of the operating section in the case of a municipality with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants and 5% in other cases, the regional audit chamber, to which the State representative refers the matter, proposes to…

The only compulsory expenditure for local authorities is that required to pay debts due and expenditure for which the law has expressly so decided. The regional audit chamber to which a matter has been referred, either by the representative of the State in the department, or by the public accountant concerned, or by any person with an interest, establishes that a compulsory expenditure has not been entered in the budget…