The Municipal Council of Itapecerica da Serra, in Greater São Paulo, approved on Thursday (18) a bill that readjusts by 70% the salary of municipal secretaries, whose salaries increase from R$10.1 thousand to R$17.1 thousand.
The text must still be sanctioned by Mayor Ramon Corsini (União Brasil) to come into force.
The project took place in the morning, during an extraordinary session that lasted six minutes – it started at 11:13 a.m. and ended at 11:20 a.m. At the same meeting, councilors also approved the municipality’s budget for next year, with revenues estimated at 898 million reais and expenses set at the same amount.
Unanimously, the vote for the salary increase lasted 1 minute and 34 seconds. Contacted by email, the Chamber of Itapecerica did not respond to contact from Leaf.
The text is signed by the Board of Directors of the Chamber, chaired by Councilor Cícero Aparecido de Melo (União Brasil), and also regulates the 13th salary and the right to vacation of secretaries.
The proposal was approved despite an opinion from the Itapecerica da Serra Prosecutor’s Office which considered it unconstitutional. Ignored, the statement by lawyer Arthur César Albuquerque de Sousa came on the same day the proposal was approved.
The main disputed point is the lack of a study of the impact of the increase on the municipal budget, a requirement of the Fiscal Responsibility Act and the Constitution itself.
If the increase in salaries creates compulsory expenditure, said the prosecutor, “it is imperative that the aforementioned bill be accompanied by an estimate of the budgetary and financial impacts”.
The municipality’s town hall has 16 departments, and the annual cost of salaries for their holders will increase from R$1.9 million to R$3.5 million, already considering the 13th salary.
The opinion of the Finance and Budget Committee simply indicates that it sees no obstacle to processing the proposal “since there is a budgetary provision for the payment of expenses linked to this project”.
The authors, in turn, argue that “the adjustment now proposed aims to adapt the subsidies to the complexity, responsibility and relevance of the functions carried out by secretaries, positions of an eminently political and strategic nature, essential to the formulation, coordination and execution of public policies”.
They also specify that “the control of subsidies does not constitute a privilege, but rather an instrument of legal and administrative adequacy, ensuring consistency between the duties exercised and the monetary compensation”.
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