STF denies appeal and maintains criterion for readjustment of teacher floor

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) decided, unanimously, to maintain the criterion for readjusting the national teaching floor. The Court considered article 5, sole paragraph, of Law 11,738/08 constitutional, which determines that the updated calculation will be published by the Ministry of Education (MEC) annually. The ministers voted to reject the embargoes presented by the government of the state of Rio Grande do Sul against this rule.

The trial of the declaratory embargoes in the Direct Action of Unconstitutionality (ADI) 4848 took place in the virtual plenary and ended on Monday night (11). The case’s rapporteur, Minister Luís Roberto Barroso, defended the Court’s decision that had already declared the constitutionality of the rule three years ago. He considered that the embargoes filed by the Rio Grande do Sul government should be rejected.

The state questioned the validity of the annual adjustment of the floor retroactively, that is, before the judgment on the merits of the ADI, which only occurred in March 2021, despite having been filed in September 2012 by the governments of Goiás, Mato Grosso do South, Piauí, Rio Grande do Sul and Roraima, informed the National Confederation of Municipalities (CNM), on the 6th, in a note.

Barroso understood that the “appealing party did not demonstrate the existence of an error, obscurity, contradiction or omission in the questioned ruling, so that there are no reasons to modify the decision rendered”. Furthermore, he considered that “there is not sufficient basis to modulate the effects of constitutionality in the specific case”.

The other Supreme Court ministers followed the rapporteur’s understanding. “As decided by the Plenary of this Court, Law No. 11,738/2008 provides for federal supplementation of resources to subnational entities that do not have the budget to meet the national minimum. Thus, regarding the State’s fiscal responsibility argument, the legal mechanism for transferring additional resources for the implementation of the national floor for basic education teaching in the States, the Federal District and the Municipalities, including, naturally, its updates, prevents the significant compromise of the entities’ finances”, pointed out the magistrate.