The article focuses on the problem of discrepancy of the current working documents of municipal strategic planning to the powers of bodies of local self-government, and presents it on the example of a selective analysis of the strategic plans of Khabarovsk and Vladivostok municipal formations. The sources of research are the strategy and strategic plans of development of municipalities in Russia. The methods of research are a legal and structurally functional analysis of the documents of strategic planning of municipalities and also the current legal acts regulating the sphere of state and municipal management and strategic planning. It marks, that the majority of the strategic documents of municipalities of Russia have no legal bases for their realization; the budgeting system is not stipulated, besides they have structurally functional infringements (absence of interrelation of problems, purposes, tasks, measures and indicators of their efficiency). The municipal strategy and the strategic plans of socio-economic development show a weak interconnection and coordination of the declared measures and projects in the time of their realization, resources and executors, which, in the long run, brings about their low execution. The author infers that inefficiency and impossibility of the realization of strategy and strategic plans of development of municipalities depend on discrepancy of the documents to the powers of bodies of local self-government. The local authority does not operate the realization of the strategic documents. The conclusion is made, that for an effective development of strategic planning in Russia, it is necessary to decide questions of its legal regulation and methodical maintenance.