The article provides a scientific analysis of the regulation of the powers of district state administrations in the field of land management. It was determined that the normative securing of the functions of the district authorities in land management, as well as the regulation of environmental safety requires unification, since in the basic laws the norms differ in content and formulation. These powers need to be reflected in the structure of the district state administration, in accordance with the basic law of administration (the structure of the public authority must correspond to the functions). In order to study the practice, the structure of 40 district administrations of different regions of Ukraine was analyzed; it was found that the actual structure does not correspond to the functional load, which is enshrined in the legislation. It is such inconsistencies that make it impossible to move to the second stage of decentralization, which is already taking place at the legislative level.