Tarcísio could take R$9 billion from SP education – 10/20/2023 – Education

The proposal by Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) to reduce the level of investment in education could remove up to R$9.66 billion, next year, from state universities and basic education schools. The expansion of places in daycare centers in municipalities may also be affected.

On Tuesday (17), the governor sent Alesp (Legislative Assembly of the State of São Paulo) a PEC (constitutional amendment proposal) to reduce investments in education from 30% to 25% of state revenue. He claims that these 5% will be used in health.

The text, sent by the government, does not present estimates of the financial impact of the change, nor does it explain which educational steps or actions will have reduced resources if the proposal is approved.

When questioned, the São Paulo government states that it is “not proposing a reduction in investments”, but a “decoupling of up to 5%”. “The proposal opens up the possibility of partial or total relocation of the flexible 5% of the budget for the health area, which is also a priority for the population.”

Despite not informing how much Education could lose, the government projects net revenue of R$193.23 billion for 2024, according to the PLOA (Budget Bill) sent to the assembly. The 5% reduction represents removing R$9.66 billion from the area.

In other words, instead of being obliged to allocate R$57.96 billion to education, the state can invest only R$48.3 billion. Within the calculation of investment in education, resources allocated to the maintenance of state schools and even transfers to city halls to expand the offer of places in early childhood education are calculated.

In the PLOA, sent at the beginning of October, the Tarcísio government has already proposed for 2024 a value of investments in education lower than 30% of tax revenue, that is, already in non-compliance with the São Paulo Constitution. The project sent foresees R$54.65 billion for the area next year, which represents 28.28% of state revenue — R$3.32 billion less than required by legislation.

The 1989 Constitution of São Paulo determined that the state should spend 30% of tax revenue on education and 12% on health. The value is higher than that provided for by the Federal Constitution, which determines a minimum of 25% for education.

The proposal to reduce the mandatory level of investment in Education occurs exactly at the moment when the São Paulo government becomes obliged, by a court decision, not to calculate expenses with retirees within 30%.

For more than two decades, São Paulo governors have used education resources in social security, which has already been considered unconstitutional by the STF. An agreement reached with the São Paulo Court of Justice authorized the state to continue the practice until the end of 2024.

“São Paulo never complied with its own Constitution. The 30% of tax revenue was never fully invested in education, because 5% was historically diverted to pay retirees and inactive people”, says Élida Graziane, professor of public administration at FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas ).

For her, the constitutional change proposed by Tarcísio occurs at a time when the state is forced to, in fact, invest resources in education.

“For years, the state failed to invest the expected amounts, and the result is what we see in education in São Paulo. Poor learning indicators and below those of poorer states, low coverage of full-time schools, low salaries for teachers. When it could, In fact, investing more to see improvements in their education, the government proposes changing the rule”, adds Élida, who was a prosecutor at the Public Ministry of Accounts.

For Cesar Callegari, president of the Brazilian Institute of Applied Sociology, the proposal puts all educational levels in the state at risk. As the government has not presented where it intends to take the 5% from, all stages are susceptible to cuts.

“The entire basic education of São Paulo could be harmed by this change. The governor had the opportunity to allocate more resources and change an unsuccessful trajectory in the state, but he is opting for the opposite path”, says Callegari, who was a member of the National Council of Education.

Experts also highlight that the reduction in investments in education could make it difficult to fulfill promises made by Tarcísio during the election campaign. He committed, for example, to increasing the supply of places in daycare centers in the municipalities of São Paulo — in 2022, only 50% of children aged 0 to 3 in the state were enrolled in early childhood education.

Another promise from Tarcísio is to expand the supply of vacancies in technical education. He also promised that São Paulo would lead the educational indicators for secondary education — in 2021, the São Paulo state network ranked 8th in average secondary education performance in the Saeb (Basic Education Assessment System).

“Education in São Paulo has a series of problems, it is behind several states. It is clear that health needs more investment, but it is worrying that the solution found is to withdraw resources from an education network that is not doing well”, he says Callegari.

The government says that the PEC does not affect the budget of state universities, but, in recent years, expenses on higher education have been calculated to reach the 30% foreseen by the São Paulo constitution, according to accounts presented to the TCE (State Court of Auditors ).

In the last financial statement, in 2022, the government stated that it had invested 31.37% of its revenues in education, and the mandatory level was only reached by including the amounts allocated to state universities (USP, Unicamp and Unesp, in addition to the Centro Paula Souza ).

Of a total of R$58.9 billion calculated for education, R$45.35 billion was allocated to basic education and R$13.6 billion to higher education — which represents 7% of spending.

“By lowering the investment limit in education, the government puts all stages at risk of losing resources. And leaves even higher education vulnerable, the only stage that managed to consolidate itself successfully in recent years in the state. São Paulo Today, it has the most important universities in the country due to having guaranteed adequate funding”, says Callegari.

A Sheet asked whether the resources of state universities will be maintained at the same current level and how the goals and promises of improvements in education will be fulfilled, but the government did not respond.

In a statement, management defended the need to transfer more resources to health. “There is still an important demographic aspect to be considered, since the national population is aging and the elderly already make up more than 15% of the total, very close to the 17.9% of Brazilians with school age from 5 to 17 years old.”

The Tarcísio government also states that its proposal brings an “innovative and efficient way of optimizing public investments and expanding the quantity and quality of services offered to the population in two essential areas”.