There will be over 1,000 rebalancing and disruption procedures in Italian municipalities in 2024, with a “significant growth” in disruptions, around 60 new cases per year since 2012, and a marked differentiation in territorial distribution. The greatest concentration of critical situations is recorded in Sicily, Calabria and Campania. The trend, however, appears more contained in the other regions of the South, despite involving, or having involved, medium-large centers such as Brindisi, Chieti, Foggia, Lecce, Taranto and Potenza. In Central Italy the number of cases is limited, with the exception of Lazio. Finally, in the North, the incidence remains marginal, although it affects some important areas such as Alessandria, Imperia, Savona, Segrate, Sesto San Giovanni and San Giuliano Milanese.
This is what emerges from the monothematic report on the financial crises of the Municipalities of the Autonomy section of the Court of Auditors, which reconstructs the rebalancing and bankruptcy procedures started both in 2024 and in the first half of 2025, offering a detailed picture of the situations still open in 2024.
The effectiveness of the legislation provided for by the Consolidated Law on local authorities
The document, which analyzes the territorial distribution and the main characteristics of the phenomenon, focuses on the effectiveness of the legislation provided for by the Consolidated Law on local authorities, highlighting the critical issues that have emerged and the interventions necessary to strengthen crisis management and the financial stability of the local authorities themselves. At the end of 2024 – we read in the analysis – 1,383 procedures were activated (795 disruptions and 588 rebalancing), of which 880 in Sicily, Calabria and Campania, with 1,001 Municipalities involved. The 487 proceedings still underway (227 failures and 260 rebalancing), although representing only 6.1% of the 7,896 Italian municipalities, concern communities close to 8 million inhabitants and a total debt mass of more than 8 billion euros. The figure is higher in larger municipalities, where the greater organizational structure makes the recovery process more difficult. In smaller centres, however, accompanying interventions usually allow for quicker equilibrium conditions. The scenario, although concentrated above all in the South, with cases limited to the North, takes on importance due to the impact on the most populous territories.
An organic reform is necessary
For the Court of Auditors, the current regulatory framework is no longer adequate and requires a comprehensive reform. The «Pacts with the Government», introduced in 2021-2022 for the provincial capitals and not yet implemented in the Consolidated Law, are producing positive results in the most complex contexts, strengthening cooperation between levels of government and helping to overcome various critical issues, even in the absence of previous crisis procedures, as in Venice, Turin, Salerno and Genoa. The use of forecasting tools based on algorithms and artificial intelligence – concludes the accounting judiciary – could significantly strengthen the prevention capacity. The MoDì project is placed in this perspective, a model developed by the Court for the timely identification of risk signals of economic-financial imbalance.