Estrutura e uso de informações orçamentárias governamentais : o caso do Conselho Municipal de Educação de Santa Maria - RS.

Abstract

The central theme of this thesis is directly related to the structure and use of budgetary accounting data, in order to generate information for the development actors. Thus, the research was focused on the content of the Budget Statements as a source of information for these actors, focusing on analytical understanding of the presented data as tool for managing and support decision making for development. It is considered that it is the Municipal Councils of Education witch has to supervise and keep up with the investment of resources for the government function - Education, making them one of the main actors in this area. The municipality of Santa Maria - RS was selected in order to be referred to as the oldest and largest educational center in the region recognized as the least developed in the State, called Metade Sul. Therefore, the work aimed to point out if there are difficulties in understanding the government budget data, by the actors of development, taking as basis the Municipal Board of Education of Santa Maria - RS, as well as suggestions for developing a communication model for data transformation in qualified information to society in general and to the directors in a specific way. It is a qualitative research and the methodology, regarding the objectives, is characterized as exploratory, considering that there is no theoretical basis consolidated on the subject matter. The technical procedure adopted was the case study and the approach method used in the study is the Inductive Method, considering that the study of phenomena was directed to more comprehensive plans which aimed to generate a theory by systematic investigation employing the Grounded Theory. It was found that the government planning, the results presented by the Governmental Accounting Budget, the classification of government expenditure and government budget statements, in general, lack the necessary requirements to serve as a source of information for society, because the systematic adopted leads to a loss of reference and makes it impossible to assess the implementation of election promises and/or Multi-Year Plan, since the way it is the process of preparation and execution is structured, it doesn’t serve as reliable parameter to support politically and/or financially the management. Among the reviewed statements, it is clear that the Statement of Enforcement Expenditure by Function/Subfunction is the closest to presenting the area in which government resources are being applied. The interviews and field observations indicate that there is no understanding of budget data by development actors, who have interest and need to receive information on budget execution. However, the technical language and format used in statements cause disinterest and lack of understanding of the data generated by the accounting. Finally, we conclude that to minimize the difficulties and disabilities and supply the exposed the suggestion of developing demonstration adapted to regional needs and cultures and/or locations must be adopted.