Transparência fiscal e controle social: uma análise da publicidade, compreensibilidade e utilidade das informações públicas sobre a despesa com pessoal do estado do Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

The large volume of personnel expenses in federated entities in Brazil compromises the prioritization of health, education, infrastructure and even investments actions, so it is imperative to comply with legal requirements in the search for responsibility in fiscal management. Among the measures, the evolution of personnel expenses should be monitored, following the limits and measures of reframing, in case the threshold is exceeded, in addition to disclosing sufficient information in order to comply with the constitutional precept of public accounts transparency and allow the control and participation of society through social control. In this sense, through the case study in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, the data disclosed in the transparency portals of the executive, judiciary, legislature, Court of Auditors and the Public Prosecution Service were analyzed in the period from 2015 to 2017 under the perspective of transparency active, in the dimensions of information visibility and inference capacity and in the vertical down ward and inward horizontal directions. There was a low level of publicity, comprehensibility and usefulness of information related to personnel expenses, mainly in relation to the verification of compliance with the limit of personnel expenses established in the LRF, with a view to adopting different methodologies for its determination without the correct disclosure in Explanatory Notes and Complementary Reports of the information necessary for verifiability of both methods. The lack of disclosure of relevant information on the expenses that make up and those that are excluded from the personnel expenses, undermine the understanding and reliability, allowing to infer that there is privileged information of the public managers in relation to society, configuring the asymmetry of information. Concludes that the low transparency of the public accounts conceals the true fiscal result of the organs and powers of the State of the RN from personnel expenses, since it has exceeded the limit of the LRF since 2015 without taking measures to control it.