WITH PARTICULAR REGARD TO BUDGETARY EXPENDITURE OF RURAL COMMUNES Summary

The article aims at identification and assessment of the extent to which ru-ral communes in Poland participate in financing environmental protection invest-ments. Investments in the natural environment protection are the subject of the pa-per. The analysis addresses particularly the issue of their financing, especially funding from budgetary means of rural communes with regard to territorial divi-sion into provinces. Secondary sources of information for the years 2004-2009 were used in the investigations. Among the sources of funding for environmental protection investments, the most important are own means covering almost half of the outlays on fixed as-sets for the natural environmental protection. Expenses from communes ’ budgets are of marginal importance for the structure of environmental protection funding. Communes ’ investment expenditure focuses almost exclusively on wastewater management, water protection and waste management. Rural communes financed 20.3 % of the total environmental investment outlays realized by all communes. Environmental protection (together with publi