Increased spending on personnel and timid growth of the FPM spark an alert for municipal accounts in 2023, says CNM
On the last 30th, about a thousand managers gathered at the headquarters of the CNM in Brasília to discuss, among other topics, the direction of the municipal coffers. The focus at the moment is where the funds will come from to pay the nursing floor, approved in August last year.
For the time being, municipalities are not obliged to pay for the adjustment, since the Federal Supreme Court (STF) suspended the floor until a funding source is appointed. But, in the most pessimistic scenario, the impact for city halls could exceed BRL 3 billion this year and BRL 10.5 billion from 2024 onwards.
If the payment of the nursing floor is still uncertain, other expenses assumed by city halls last year are putting pressure on local accounts, says Paulo Ziulkoski, president of CNM. Last year, the federal government increased the base salary for basic education teachers by 33.2%. This year, a new readjustment of 14.9% was granted.
In both cases, the CNM guided the mayors to correct the floor only due to inflation and not based on the decision coming from Brasilia. The argument is that the municipalities would not be obliged to give the readjustment because there is a legislative vacuum in defining the criteria for the readjustments. Even so, one in four city halls began to pay for the new teaching floor.
“I’m terrified with the studies we’ve done, because despite being alerted by us, approximately 26% of the municipalities in Brazil have granted, most of them illegally, an increase in the teaching floor. , because you spent 33% for a category that represents 27%, on average, of the costs of employees in all municipalities in Brazil”.
Ziulkoski claims that cases of city halls that have exceeded the limit of 54% of expenses with the Executive’s payroll are not rare. “There is no way not to arrive at the end of the year, with exceptions, with rejected accounts. And the effects of rejected accounts, you know what it is”, he told the mayors.
According to the CNM, the two readjustments in the salary floor for teachers could cost municipalities up to R$ 50 billion per year.
outsourcing
Another factor that may put even more pressure on city hall funds is the change in the understanding of justice and control bodies to include outsourced services in the limit of expenses with municipal personnel. To Brasil 61, Senator Efraim Filho (União-PB) – author of a bill to keep outsourcing out of the ceiling – explained the imbroglio.
“There is a court decision that wants to reverse the understanding that outsourced services would not be included in the personnel expense account, which affects the prudential limit and the insertion within the limits provided for in the LRF. If you change this understanding, with the advent of the floor professors, nurses and community health agents, the risk that these mayors will not be able to meet this prudential limit of up to 60% means that many of them may suffer penalties and that will even lead to their ineligibility in the future”, he says .
FPM
Main source of revenue for most small Brazilian municipalities, the FPM has not grown at a pace that allows it to compensate for the increase in expenses. In 2022, by May, the FPM had grown by 26% compared to the previous year. This year, over the same period, it rose 8.7%. “The projection is to reach the end of the year with a real increase of 1%. If it gets there”. If I were mayor, I would form a fund of mine and not touch it, to arrive on the 31st (December), if there isn’t one, it’s there. If it arrives in November and the fundraising is good, I’ll spend that money. Now, you have to plan”, says Ziulkoski.
By Brasil 61
