EN
The paper presents the results of the standardization of administrative costs of forest districts using the Management Difficulty Index (STG) for forest districts. It discusses the basis for the structuring of the STG for forest districts as well as standardization of administrative costs of the regional directorates of the State Forests using the source data from 2014. The source data for the administrative costs incurred by forest districts as well as the data on natural−forest conditions and annual economic tasks of forest districts were obtained from the State Forests Information System database for all forest districts in the country, the Bureau for Forest Management and Geodesy and the Forest Data Bank. Information on the social environment of forest districts was obtained from the Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office and the data on the number of cases of theft and damage to forests directly from forest districts. The obtained results indicate that the index value calculated for the regional directorates of the State Forests (RDSF) was determined by the number of subordinate forest districts and index values obtained by them. The highest STG value in 2014 was reported for: Katowice RDSF – 153.43, Szczecin RDSF – 145.2 and Wrocław RDSF – 128.7 points. The lowest STG value was recorded in the Warsaw RDSF – 49.39, Kraków RDSF – 53.14 and Gdańsk RDSF – 64.02 points. The calculated differences between the total administrative costs incurred by forest districts and the total standard administrative costs calculated on the basis of the mean value of 1 point of STG for forest districts in the State Forests for 2014 allowed dividing the regional directorates of the State Forests into two groups. The first one consists of 10 regional directorates, whose total actual administrative activity costs were lower than total standard administrative costs (negative values). The other group consists of 7 regional directorates, whose total standard administrative costs were lower than actual costs incurred in 2014 (positive values). STG indices for forest districts can be successfully used to standardize the total costs of forest districts. They should be a helpful tool in developing more objective methods of shaping the employment level in forest districts taking into account natural−forest conditions and economic tasks being implemented in these organizational units.