Readjustment for server and pleasing police officers will require a block of R$ 15 billion

The government needs to block about R$15 billion in this year’s budget to accommodate the rise in mandatory expenses, grant readjustments to all servers and still meet President Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) desire to please police careers, according to sources. of the government heard by the Sheet.

There is also an increase of approximately R$ 2 billion in the expenses of the other branches (Legislative and Judiciary), totaling R$ 17 billion in reallocations, but this smaller portion does not need to be blocked.

The final decision on the size of the cut is scheduled for this Thursday (19) at a meeting of the JEO (Budget Execution Board), formed by ministers Ciro Nogueira (Casa Civil) and Paulo Guedes (Economy).

Internal calculations indicate that the Executive needs another R$ 4.6 billion to be able to afford the 5% linear adjustment for all servers. The total cost of the measure is R$ 6.3 billion, but the Budget already has a reserve of R$ 1.7 billion.

The technicians are also forecasting an expansion of R$300 million to R$400 million to accommodate a one-off restructuring of the PRF (Federal Highway Police) and Depen (Department of Penitentiary) careers.

as showed the Sheet, Bolsonaro wants to grant a greater readjustment to security careers to fulfill a promise made to the group. In the polls of intention to vote for the dispute for the Palácio do Planalto, he appears in second place, behind former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

The president’s original desire was to cover all corporations, but, given the strong restriction of resources, the most recent discussions indicate that the government should focus only on the PRF and Depen, which have lower salaries than the PF (Federal Police).

The proposal that has gained the most strength in recent days is to carry out a restructuring to match the salaries of PRF agents to those of the Federal Police.

In addition to Bolsonaro having assistants who belong to the PRF, the nod to the corporation is also attributed to his proximity to the president, since these police officers are responsible for security on motorcycles, among other functions.

Government sources also say that the presidential decree that will authorize the appointment of another 625 PF agents and another 625 from the PRF is being drafted. The resource for this measure, however, is already foreseen in the Budget and will not require additional cuts.

Technicians expect a tense meeting this Thursday. Members of the top of different ministries already report having nowhere else to cut and fear the new tightening. The budget block should be the most aggressive of the year because, in addition to the need to accommodate the impact of readjustments, the increase in mandatory expenses is estimated at around R$10 billion.

The greatest pressure comes from RPVs (small value requisitions), the name given to convictions suffered by the Union in lawsuits worth up to 60 minimum wages. According to government estimates, the courts reported a projection between R$4.5 billion and R$4.8 billion higher than initially forecast.

Although the National Congress approved last year a limit for the payment of precatories, which also covers these RPVs, technicians interviewed by the report informed that this ceiling is applied in the preparation of the Budget.

That is, if the projection of spending on sentences rises during the year, as is the case now, the government needs to meet this need with a cut in other non-mandatory expenditures. It is not possible to cut the other precatories already accounted for in the limit.

The need to increase these expenses is classified behind the scenes as “the tail of the meteor”, in reference to Guedes’ phrase last year that the increase in the precatories account was a “meteor”.

It will also be necessary to increase by R$ 2.3 billion the forecast of resources of the Safra Plan, which finances the producers of the crops. The funds will finance the reopening of operations for the 2021/2022 period and the launch of the 2022/2023 Plan in July.

The technicians also mapped the need to increase by R$ 2 billion the budget for Proagro, a guarantee program for financing in the rural sector.

There is also an increase of R$ 1.8 billion in the forecast of expenses with the payment of the salary bonus — a kind of 14th salary paid to workers with a formal contract and who earn up to two minimum wages.

A few expenses should register a decline, so that the balance of the impact on mandatory expenses is R$ 10 billion.

The cuts will result in a strong squeeze on discretionary spending by the portfolios, which include administrative costs and investments.

This is because, according to behind-the-scenes reports, Bolsonaro wants to shield the rapporteur’s amendments, an instrument used by Congress to irrigate its electoral bases with federal resources, without following principles of transparency or equity in the distribution of funds.

The 2022 Budget was approved with an amount of R$ 16.5 billion for the rapporteur’s amendments. Of this amount, R$1.7 billion was blocked in March to accommodate an increase in mandatory expenses.

Technicians collected information on the low execution of the rapporteur’s amendments — so far, only R$ 200 million have been executed, equivalent to about 1.3% of the authorized allocation. Therefore, from an operational point of view, it would make sense to reallocate resources and avoid a collapse in the folders that are already heavily compressed.

However, in an election year and under strong pressure from allies, the president’s orientation is to stay away from these funds when applying the budget cut.