Note from Cruesp to Portal G1 and GloboNews
São Paulo, September 5, 2020
About the report “Government of SP changes fiscal adjustment project and gives up taking surplus cash from universities and Fapesp from 2020”, published on Portal G1 and reproduced on GloboNews on September 4, despite the changes announced by the leader of the government in the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo (Alesp) represent a relative advance, the Council of Rectors of São Paulo State Universities (Cruesp) considers that foreseeing the transfer of surpluses from these institutions for the year 2019 continues to be an affront to the principles of university autonomy in force for three decades.
Thus, Cruesp reaffirms in the following terms the contradiction to this point of Bill 529/2020 that is being processed at Alesp:
- The use of university surpluses for any other purposes should not be applied. This is one of the fundamental pillars of financial and budgetary management autonomy;
- The purpose of collecting the financial surplus to finance expenses with retirees and pensioners would be innocuous, given that universities already carry out such budgetary and financial procedures. University retirees are paid by the ICMS share and not by SPPREV;
- Revenue from agreements, by law, cannot be part of PL 529/20;
- Universities, as their revenue is linked to ICMS, have already suffered a huge financial impact during periods of economic crisis in recent years, and especially during the pandemic.
Cruesp will remain open to dialogue and will closely monitor the Executive and Legislative developments in relation to the aforementioned bill.
Council of Rectors of São Paulo State Universities
