Overcoming the Crisis:The Public Finances of Barranquilla, 2000-2009

Abstract

During the first years of the last decade, the District of Barranquilla faced a severe financial crisis that led the local government to adopt different fiscal clean-up programs proposed by the Ministry of Finance and to be sanctioned for not abiding by Law 617 of 2000. Beginning in 2008, however, the city’s finances improved. Barranquilla is now one of the top cities in Colombia in fiscal results, its level of operating expenditures is satisfactory and tax income has increased substantially. However, though its financial performance for the past few years is satisfactory, there are still problems that must be solved in the short run. This document insists in the recommendation of other authors, that Barranquilla must quickly quantify its pension debt in order to include it in the municipal budget and generate the income provisions to cover its arrears in case it must, in effect, pay them.