Prosecutor questions transfer from City Hall to Liceu – 01/20/2023 – Education

The São Paulo City Attorney’s Office questioned the agreement signed between the city hall and the Liceu Coração de Jesus school, which threatened to close its doors last year after 137 years of activities. The school is located in the Cracolândia region and has suffered from a lack of security for decades.

In an opinion, the municipal control body said it was “an unprecedented model for offering places in elementary education”, and classified as “exotic” the part of the agreement that provides for the payment of rent and IPTU of the building where the school operates. .

For the Municipal Secretary of Education, the notes made by the attorney general are “common and natural” of any administrative process and there is no irregularity in the agreement.

Questions from the prosecution led councilor Senival Moura (PT) to request the TCM (Municipal Audit Court) to immediately suspend the agreement. In the representation, he says that the delay in the measure can bring future problems to many students of the municipal network.

This Wednesday (18th) the Department of Education began to receive registrations of students interested in studying at the Lyceum. According to the folder, there is already a queue for a vacancy in the unit.

The city hall’s agreement with the Lyceum foresees monthly transfers of around R$527,000, which includes the payment of rent and property tax for the building in the amount of R$139,442.70, in addition to R$388,365.70 to maintain the cost of school.

There is also a forecast of a single transfer of R$ 572,540.01 for the building’s physical adaptations. In exchange, the Salesiana Brasil de Escolas Network will offer 500 full-time places for the municipal education network – 250 places for early childhood education and 250 places for students in the early years of elementary school (from 1st to 5th grade).

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the city hall is the tenant of the property owned by the education network, and the private institution itself will not use the space, which contradicts an excerpt from the Civil Code regarding rental contracts, according to the agency. . “There is no lease of property for own use”, says an excerpt from the document that the Sheet had access.

The document also drew attention to the process of drafting the agreement with waiver of public call. In cases like this, the normal bureaucratic rite begins with the manifestation of interest by the private entity in establishing an agreement with the city hall, which, in turn, opens a public notice to invite other companies and wins the one that presents the best partnership proposal.

Regarding the Lyceum, the management of Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB) made the opposite move, that is, it sought out the education network to carry out the transfers. “The choice to formalize a partnership to offer vacancies for fundamental education represents a shift in the policy in vogue, which reinforces the need for justification for the choice of the entity elected for this purpose”, argued the municipality’s controller in the document.

As shown by Sheet, the announcement of the closure of the Lyceum had negative repercussions for the mayor. This is because one of the reasons that led to the end of the school was the increase in violence in the region where it is located, close to Cracolândia, in the center of São Paulo. Nunes, in turn, is a defender of police actions that ended up spreading users across the region.

The attorney general’s opinion also points out that maintaining activities at the Lyceum is important to avoid weakening the City Hall’s actions in the region. “Maintaining and increasing the functioning of this institution is essential for confronting and reducing the process of urban degradation in the locality”, says the document.

In addition to the need to maintain activities on site, the agreement with the Liceu is in line with another policy defended by the mayor, the outsourced management of schools.

According to documents made available by the secretariat to the Attorney General’s Office, the per capita monthly cost for full elementary education at the Liceu will be R$ 775.44, an amount considered advantageous by the ministry in relation to similar teaching units in the direct administration.

Councilor Moura said that the speed with which the process was carried out drew attention. “In 40 days everything was ready”, said the congressman. “Although the mayor had good intentions [ao elaborar o convênio]it is necessary to understand the reason for a monthly transfer of BRL 500 thousand to a private entity”, he continued.

In early January, after the announcement of the agreement, councilor Celso Gianazzi (PSOL) also filed a complaint with the Public Ministry and the TCM (Municipal Audit Court) asking for the annulment of the contract with the Lyceum.

He, as well as experts in the field, argues that the agreement with the Lyceum is unconstitutional. The first paragraph of article 213 of the Constitution says that public resources can only be allocated to community, confessional or philanthropic schools “when there is a lack of vacancies and regular courses in the public network”. It also says that the government is “obliged to invest primarily in the expansion of its network”.

This understanding is reinforced by the Fundeb law (Fund for the Maintenance and Development of Basic Education), which prevents the use of transfers of federal resources to partner schools in elementary education.

Bruno Lopes Correia, Deputy Secretary of Education, said that the City Hall is “completely sure” that there is no illegality in the agreement with the Lyceum. “We would never do something that tomorrow could have a decision by some control body that could overthrow the expectation of 500 families who today have a guaranteed full-time place.”

He said that notes made by the attorney general’s office were corrected before the signing of the agreement and that the city hall is ready to provide the necessary clarifications to the control bodies.

The Liceu Coração de Jesus informed that it is able to establish a partnership with the city hall and will meet the curriculum of the city, which is secular. And reinforce that the secularity of teaching will be respected.

“As far as rent is concerned, the definition of the value followed an ordinance of the Municipal Government Secretariat and an appraisal report was prepared by an expert from the city hall itself. The monthly value contracted for property rental is compatible with the market value of the properties real estate in the region and is based on the property’s lease appraisal report,” said the college, in a statement.