The Audit Courts of the State of São Paulo and their evaluation on the governmental spending in education

Abstract

This study is part of a major research about all the Audit Courts (ACs) in Brazil and intends to examine how the ACs of São Paulo have been analyzing the governmental incomes and spending applied to the maintenance and development of teaching (MDT), facing the existence of a great diversity of interpretations among the Brazilian ACs. Further, we point out some polemic results concerning two ACs in the State of São Paulo. Although the Organic Law (OL) of the São Paulo municipality stipulated (up to 2001) the minimal percentage of 30%, the AC that examines the municipal government’s accounts was based on the 25% fixed by the Federal Constitution (FC); Mistakes committed by the AC of the State when calculating the State incomes, as the inclusion of the education-salary and agreements in the calculated base of 30% fixed by the FC, when it should be added to the minimum and to the non-accountability of backward taxes, of the federal taxes transfers and of the service fee incomes of educational segments of the State government; Classification as MDT of expenses not included into its legal definition as the inactive ones that totaled up R$ 2 million in 1998. Th e conclusion is that the definitions of the educational legislation – Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional – LDB (Brazilian Basic Tenets Law) – specifi cally Law number 9.424 do not assure the use of the education allocated amount which depends much