The current paper aims to analyze the performance of the public expenditure management based on the decrease of the administrative costs. The paper is grounded on the following premises: (1) Romania as an EU Member State is under a continuous process to harmonize its legislation with the EU legislation. (2) The integration of Romania in EU in 2007 has determined a significant change in the administrative expenditure amount. (3) Strengthening local autonomy through the decentralization and the devolution processes emphasizes clearer the need for improving the performance of the expenditure management at local level. (4) Internal order, flows of communication and transfer, synergy of the governance system assume administrative expenditure that can be determined. (5) The performance of public organizations in managing local governance issues depends directly also on the administrative expenditure level**. [** Paper accepted to be presented at the Fourth TransAtlantic Dialogue “The Status of Inter-Governmental Relations and Multi-Level Governance in Europe and the US”, Workshop 5: “Performance measurement and accountability in IGR-MLG”.]