早期政府遵循財政平衡而多居於穩健狀態，但隨著民眾對於公共服務的質與量要求日增，政府功能擴張，支出大幅增加而收入卻無法同步成長，1990年代以來收支失衡漸成常態，政府須仰賴舉債來維持運作。而為因應全球化都會整合趨勢、減少行政層級、提升行政效率，高雄市與高雄縣在原有制度、歷史、及地理的差異於2010年合併，需依法承擔原高雄縣變更為直轄市的權責與業務，經費的負擔與財政窘困的情況雪上加霜，導致高雄市近年入不敷出、債務節節高升高居全國各縣市之冠，改善高雄市財政狀況已刻不容緩。
近年國內外已有許多評估地方政府財政狀況的指標，但往往不夠全面或不易於使用，而林恭正等（2014）所編製財政健全指數之做法，改善上述缺點並採用10分數的方式，計算包含現金償付能力、預算支應能力、長債償還能力及永續服務能力等4大指標與其中17項小指標。本文延續該指標以台灣各地方政府2013至2017年財政狀況為對象初步評估後，進一步針對高雄市的指數結果進行詳細分析，希望能對高雄市財政困境深入認識後找出可行的開源節流措施作為參考。
研究發現高雄市的現金償付能力與長債償還能力顯著較其他縣市差，而預算支應能力及永續服務能力則保持在前面及中間的名次。而從指數計算結果分析出高雄市目前面臨的主要財政困境為：債務過高瀕臨債限、自籌財源偏低、支出結構僵化。而相關開源節流措施本文建議如下：
1. 善用舉新還舊減緩債務利息財務壓力並嘗試減債
2. 依物價水準適度調整規費並活化閒置空間
3. 清查稅籍掌握稅源及逐步調整財產稅稅基
4. 持續控管人員組織編制避免人事費用成長
5. 以零基預算方式依照施政優先順序分配資源。

In earlier times, governments were able to keep financial balance and maintain fiscal stability. However, people’s demand on the quality and quantity of public services have gradually extended. Therefore, governments started to provide more functions, leading to a significant increase in spending, which out weights the growth of fiscal revenue. From 1990s, it has been very common that local governments reported unbalance in revenue and expenditure. Governments had to rely on the issuance of bonds to maintain operation. Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County, for the purpose of keeping in tandem with the global trend of integrating cities, reducing the number of administrative levels, and improving administrative efficiency, merged into one city in terms of system, history and geography. After the merging, Kaohsiung City needs to take over the duties and services of Kaohsiung County, as well as complete the transition to a municipality directly under the Central Government, escalating the gloomy financial status in light of the extra spending stress. As a result, Kaohsiung City have failed to make ends meet in recent years. Its debt level top nationally. It is urgent that the public finances of Kaohsiung City to be improved.
At home and abroad, there have been many indexes for evaluating local governments’ finances in recent years. However, the majority of these indexes are either not comprehensive or too difficult to utilize. Lin et al. (2014) developed a fiscal health indicator which improves the above-mentioned flaws and adopts a 10-score rating scheme. Its calculation combines 4 major indicators, namely, cash solvency, budgetary solvency, long-run solvency and service-level solvency. The 4 major indicators have 17 sub-indicators which have been included in the calculation. This study extends the preliminary evaluation report using this index for the assessment of local governments’ finances in Taiwan from 2013 to 2017 by developing detailed analysis on the result for Kaohsiung City. This study hopes to gain in-depth insights into Kaohsiung city’s financial difficulties and provide feasible measures to increase revenue and reduce expenditure for its reference.
This study reveals that the cash solvency and long-run solvency of Kaohsiung City are significantly weaker than those of other cities and counties. The budgetary solvency and service-level solvency of Kaohsiung City are ranked in the upper to middle places. From the analysis on the calculation result, it is revealed that the main financial difficulties faced by Kaohsiung City are: heavy debt burden, approaching the debt cap; scarce sources of self-financing; stiff expenditure structure. This study puts forth the following suggestions regarding the measures to increase revenue and reduce expenditure:
1. Utilize the issuance of new bonds to pay the interests of old ones so as to ameliorate fiscal stress and reduce the overall debt
2. Make proper adjustment to fees in accordance with commodity prices level and make use of idle space
3. Verify the registration information of tax payers so as to have a good grasp of the tax source, gradually adjust the base for property tax
4. Control the personnel structure, caution against the increase in staff overheads
5. Allocate resources in accordance with policy priorities by way of zero-base budgeting.

第一章 緒論　1
第一節 研究動機及背景　1
第二節 研究目的　8
第三節 研究架構　9
第二章 文獻探討　10
第一節 地方政府財政狀況惡化之成因　10
第二節 各地方政府條件差異探討及回顧　13
第三節 財政狀況評估方法相關文獻　15
第三章 財政健全指數之編製方法　17
第四章 財政健全指數之評估與分析　21
第一節 指標之計算　21
第二節 指標效度之檢定　27
第三節 高雄市指數之分析　28
第五章 高雄市之開源節流措施改善探討　35
第六章 結論及建議　40
參考文獻　42
附錄　45

中文部分
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陳威傑，1995，《都市財政壓力評估方法之實證研究》，國立成功大學都市計劃研究所碩士論文。
陳朝建，2004，「政府財政與預算：地方財政惡化與地方財政重建」，新台灣國策智庫。
張其祿，2003，「我國地方政府財政地位之經驗研究」，《公共行政學報》第8期，頁99-122。
曾巨威，2008，「請行政院讓賦改會安樂死吧！」，工商時報社論。
彭杏珠，2015，「除了帳面數字還有看不見的危機─地方潛藏負債竟高達6兆1682億」，遠見雜誌2015年9月號。
蔡宜穎，2017，《台灣地方財政健全指數之研究：區域劃分與信效度之評估》，台北大學財政學系碩士論文。
劉品柔，2014，《台灣地方政府財政永續性之實證分析》，台北大學財政學系學位論文。
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英文部分
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