Hiiu County is set to give up municipality districts by the end of this year.

When Hiiu County (covering the island of Hiiumaa) merged into a single municipality back in 2017, five municipality districts were created. The islanders have now decided that they're no longer needed.

Anu Pielberg, chair of the Hiiu Municipality Council, said that one reason the local government wants to abolish municipality districts is better salaries.

"One reason is that we need to increase the salaries of our employees and officials, because the economic situation is what it is in Estonia, and specialization can be used to standardize services and achieve higher salaries," Pielberg said.

First, social workers were moved out of municipality districts, followed by construction and planning specialists, while administrative activities will be merged last.

Mikk Lõhmus, adviser at the Ministry of Regional Affairs, said that municipality districts were a so-called transitionary solution to alleviate fears of regions losing their say in matters.

"We also know that in some places, municipality districts were a way of 'retaining' smaller municipalities, which made them somewhat unpopular in general," Lõhmus said.

"The idea was to allow smaller local communities to still participate in the decision-making process, with the municipality district council the best such instrument," the ministry official added.

Two years ago, the Juuru and Kaiu municipality districts in Rapla Municipality closed as the district councils had too few participants. Rapla Municipality Mayor Gert Villard described it as the natural course of things.

"They were not hugely active. We had the good fortune of regional coordinators also in those two regions. They relayed people's concerns and helped communicate the municipality's decisions in all corners. There was little sense in duplicating these functions," Villard said.

The City of Pärnu has three municipality districts, and because they cover a very large area, their abolition has not been considered to date.

"I've spoken to colleagues in Finland. There have been several local government reforms there, and they say that it takes between two and three election cycles for local governments to merge. As we're in our second cycle following the administrative reform, it's a historical inevitability and a road we must walk," said Siim Suursild, chairman of the Pärnu City Council.

Märjamaa Municipality has also abolished its municipality district government, while it is only in charge of real estate management and general maintenance in Lääne-Niguula Municipality.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!