: Due to the establishment of a new public administration understanding in the international environment, particularly in the USA and the Anglo-Saxon world, a highly comprehensive literature had been accumulated on measuring the individual and institutional performances in the public sector. Recently, there have been also a proliferation of the empirical studies that were testing these theoretical assumptions in different regions and countries. Even though the literature on the local governments and local government budgeting in Turkey is substantially advanced and comprehensive, since the legislation of the No: 5018 Law on the performance administration in the public administration the number of the empirical works on the performance indicators of local governments had been quite limited. This work, starting from this void, aims to test two hypotheses on Turkish case. Firstly, what is the impact of the qualifications of the mayors (education, experience) and the support that the mayor possesses on the budgetary performance of the municipality? Secondly, through following the political budget cycle literature, do the mayors in Turkey opts for policy changes for maximising votes before elections. In order to test these two hypotheses a comprehensive data set was established taking into consideration 81 metropolitan municipalities between 2012-2020. Our findings demonstrate, there was not a meaningful relation between the mayors’ qualifications and institutional performances. Nevertheless, there is an important impact of the effect of the year before the local elections and the central government support on the balance of the municipality budget. Therefore, this work, can make a substantial contribution to the literature through the extensive data and findings that it presents.

Keywords: New Public Management, Local Governments, Mayor,  Political Budget Cycle, Financial Performance