Government considers raising benefits for civil servants instead of salaries

The government is studying raising the value of benefits received by public servants, such as food stamps, to try to appease the widespread pressure for salary increases.

According to technicians consulted by the leaf, the measure would be a way of contemplating the entire civil service, instead of granting increases only to the police categories, as President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) waved.

The targeted promise of the Chief Executive, who counts the police as an important part of his electorate, sparked mobilizations from other categories, demanding the same treatment. Some have been without readjustment for five years.

The government currently has a budget of R$ 1.7 billion set aside in the 2022 Budget to give readjustments to civil servants.

The amount is insufficient to give a reasonable linear increase to civil servants, and there is no fiscal space to increase personnel expenses even further.

So technicians are now discussing the feasibility of using the money to readjust benefits, a far-reaching, low-cost measure compared to the impact of increases.

The Executive currently pays a monthly meal allowance of R$458 to all active civil servants, except for those who are on leave for long-term training or assignment to international organizations.

The pre-school allowance, paid to active employees with children up to six years old, has a value of up to R$321 per month.

The values ​​had the last adjustment in 2016 and are well below what is paid by the other Powers.

In the Chamber of Deputies, civil servants receive BRL 982.29 in food allowance and BRL 798.42 in pre-school allowance, according to data from December 2021. In the Judiciary, these amounts are BRL 910.08 and BRL $719.62 respectively.

According to sources in the economic area, the new values ​​are still being calibrated according to the space available in the Budget.

To move forward with the strategy, the government will need to propose a change to the 2022 LDO (Budget Guidelines Law).

The text today expressly prohibits any readjustment in these benefits. After the change, the new values ​​may be fixed by means of a ministerial decree.

Bolsonaro’s signal to the police opened an impasse within the government, as the granting of selective readjustments, only for police officers, could trigger a more serious crisis in the middle of an election year.

Furthermore, the current interpretation on the part of the Executive is that, even if the R$ 1.7 billion were used to give a linear adjustment to all salaries, the percentage would be so low that it could generate an even more adverse reaction.

Government calculations indicate that every 1% of readjustment granted to civil servants raises Union spending by at least R$3 billion. With the available funds, a linear adjustment would be approximately 0.5%.

On the other hand, benefits, as they are of lower value, may have a more robust readjustment percentage.

In addition, the government relies on the argument that the country is still facing the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and that public servants have not lost jobs or income as in the private sector.

While workers with a formal contract had a temporary reduction in working hours and wages and suspension of contracts, civil servants maintained their remuneration without cuts.

The idea of ​​a readjustment in benefits has been gaining ground in the government as a way of replacing the rise in civil servants’ salaries, but members recognize that the category of police officers is important for the president.

Therefore, it is not ruled out that Bolsonaro ends up granting an increase aimed at the category.

There is speculation about a possible strategy by the president of waiting until the eve of the start of legal restrictions this year to grant the readjustments to the police.

Once the window for changes was closed, the other civil servants could no longer pressure the government because there would be no legal support for new readjustments.

Restrictions are in more than one law. The Electoral Law (9,504/1997) prohibits raising the salary of public servants above inflation within six months before the election (beginning of April).

The current text of the Fiscal Responsibility Law (101/2001) determines that the act that promotes readjustment or career restructuring less than six months before the end of the mandate (end of June) is null.

Entities that represent the elite of civil servants protested last month for salary increases of up to 28.15% – which corresponds to the accumulated lag of the IPCA accumulated from January 2017 to last December.

The percentage is not a consensus among the servers. Entities that represent the base of civil service claim an increase of 19.99%, which represents the inflation lag during the Bolsonaro government.