Budgetary Workers

It may seem deceptively simple: they are those who receive a salary from a federal, regional or municipal budget. But this is not quite so. As a rule, public sector workers are understood to be employees of budget-funded educational institutions (schools), the healthcare system (hospitals), cultural institutions (theatres) and so on.

Officials, police officers, military personnel and other security services, even though they are paid from the budget, are not considered to be public employees. Their work is regulated by special federal laws: on state and municipal service (one, two, three), as well as on police, federal security service, military service, and so on.

Civil servants receive long-service pensions (i.e. related to the number of years in service), and they also receive additional days of paid leave. But, most importantly, they are able to get jobs under special procedures, not on the free labour market like teachers, doctors, actors in state theatres, and other state employees.

There is also a common practice of usually jokingly calling employees of state corporations, state and municipal unitary enterprises (those engaged in rubbish collection or extra-departmental security, for example) "budgetniks". However, they are not budgetary employees in the strict sense of the word, as they work in commercial enterprises created by government authorities, and their salaries are paid from the authorities' funds, not from the budget.

From Signal article