Senate approves proposal that removes from the state ceiling expenses with amendments and transfers from the Union

The plenary of the Senate approved this Thursday (9) a complementary bill that removes from the ceiling on state spending the expenses with parliamentary amendments and also transfers from the Union.

The proposal was approved by 56 votes in favor of the senators and seven against. As this is a complementary bill, 41 votes were needed. The project now goes to the sanction of President Jair Bolsonaro.

The purpose of the proposal is to provide relief for state finances.

“Dear colleagues, the difficulties accumulated by federated entities after a whole decade of low economic growth cannot be ignored, nor should we forget the terrible impacts that the Covid-19 pandemic had on public management and that were noticed in all corners of our country. The sum of these factors means that we are talking about an especially stormy moment for all governments of the most diverse ideological hues or political positions,” said the rapporteur of the proposal, senator Vanderlan Cardoso (PSD-GO).

The approved proposal amends the complementary law, enacted in 2016, which created the Assistance Plan for the States and the Federal District and created measures for the fiscal rebalancing of federal entities. This legislation contains provisions that limit the annual growth of primary expenditures to the variation of the IPCA (official inflation index).

The bill removes from these limitations the expenses borne by resources from transfers from the Union with linked applications, such as fund-to-fund transfers, Cide (Contribution for Intervention in the Economic Domain), education salary, Pronatec (National Program for Access to Technical Education and Employment ), Pelé Law and others. It also removes expenses with parliamentary amendments from the calculation basis.

Also on Thursday, the senators symbolically approved a proposal that suspends the validity of public tenders approved before the pandemic until the end of this year, until March of last year – when a state of public calamity was decreed in Brazil.

The initial forecast is that the suspension of the validity period would be valid until December of last year, with the end of the state of calamity. The new project, in practice, foresees that the validity periods of the tenders will start to run only from the beginning of 2022.

The project is also going to be sanctioned by President Jair Bolsonaro.

The reason for the suspension of the validity of the courses is linked to the approval last year of the program to fight the pandemic. One of the points provided for the prohibition of the increase in personnel expenses until the end of 2021, making it impossible to hire successful candidates in public competitions.

“As soon as there is a law prohibiting hiring, allowing the counting of the validity period of the competition during this situation would be tantamount to denying the successful candidate the right to be summoned within the prescribed period. The period of two years ( extendable for an equal period) is not only a temporal authorization for the Public Power to nominate those who have passed, but also a guarantee of candidates that, for two years, they will have the expectation of the right to nomination”, states the text by rapporteur Jaques Wagner (PT -BA).