Congressional administrative reform does not affect super salaries and job security

The administrative reform, which is being drafted by the National Congress in partnership with the federal government, will not address structural and sensitive issues for the modernization and efficiency gains of public administration, such as the review or capping of super salaries and the stability of public employees.

On Tuesday, Congressman Pedro Paulo (PSD-RJ), who coordinated the working group responsible for debating the proposal, submitted three draft bills to the Speaker of the House, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB). However, the bills will only be debated by Congress upon the return from the parliamentary recess, starting on August 1st.

The administrative reform under debate is divided into three texts: a Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC), a Bill (PL), and a Complementary Bill (PLP). According to the rapporteur, these have not yet been filed for debate with the caucuses.

State size remains a political taboo

According to the parliamentarian, the goal will be to provide guidelines for a more efficient state. Even before submitting the preliminary bills, the texts of which have not yet been released, the rapporteur had already announced that the proposals would not include fiscal adjustment measures, much less any discussion of the "size of the state."

“Administrative reform to increase state efficiency cannot be confused with fiscal adjustment, much less with withdrawing resources from health and education,” the congressman argued.

Wagner Lenhart, CEO of the Millenium Institute and former Secretary of Personnel Management and Performance at the Ministry of Economy during the Bolsonaro administration, asserts that modernizing the state cannot be achieved in a single act. However, he asserts that if the proposed administrative reform doesn't address sensitive issues now, it will have to be done later.

The CEO of the Center for Public Leadership (CLP), Tadeu Barros, said that administrative reform must necessarily involve three fundamental pillars: modernization of the public sector, review of privileges, and qualification of public spending.

"Regarding public spending, although Brazil has a high tax burden (over 33% of GDP), the results in public services could be much better, especially in areas such as education, health, security and infrastructure," he said.

The government's second largest expense is on civil servants

Arnaldo Lima, an economist at Polo Capital, explains that administrative reform should serve as a fiscal anchor in the new institutional arrangement, especially since approximately 30% of the federal government's workforce will retire in about ten years. Personnel expenses represent 16.9% of the federal government's total expenditure, second only to Social Security (43.3%).

He states that administrative reform would be a strategic opportunity to align the public sector with the real needs of society and the fiscal limits of the State.

Reform avoids debate on public service stability

According to the rapporteur, the review of military retirement was also left out—as a government proposal is currently under consideration in Congress. The reform also doesn't affect job security for civil servants, which the deputies see as a way to advance the bill.

According to Pedro Paulo, previous proposals, such as PEC 32, presented by the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro, were not approved by Congress in the past because they "vilified" public servants.

"Stability cannot end, just as civil servants' rights cannot be reduced. Viewing them as villains and the cause of state inefficiency is a mistake," says Pedro Paulo.

High salaries outside the reform maintain the image of privileges

In addition to the discussion on the size of the state, limits on super salaries were also left out of the administrative reform drafts. According to Pedro Paulo, the Working Group outlined 17 to 20 points on the topic, but agreement is needed between leaders in Congress and between the branches of government for the topic to be included in the reform.

Tadeu Barros, of the CLP, states that excessive salaries are unacceptable on three counts: moral, fiscal, and social. "The lack of measures to combat excessive salaries reinforces the image that privileges are protected for specific groups within the public administration, which must be combated by the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branches," he said.

He cites a recent study by the Movimento Pessoas à Frente, according to which the impact of super salaries on public finances in 2023 reached R$11 billion — more than double the annual budget of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MMA) in 2025. "These resources could be allocated to public policies – such as health, education, security, infrastructure, basic sanitation, and environmental protection," he states.

What is in the reform texts

According to the rapporteur, the texts contain a total of 66 proposals, including:

• Measures for evaluating individual performance with a bonus for public servants who meet established goals;
  
• Unified National Competition (CNU) for states and municipalities;
  
• Digital transformation of public authorities, including regulations from the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services that address remote work (home office );
• National registry for temporary hiring of public employees, extended for use by all entities;
  
• Flexibility of temporary contracts.

What is missing for a true administrative reform

According to Wagner Lenhart, one of those responsible for drafting PEC 32 in the Bolsonaro government, an administrative reform should be based on six pillars:

• Structural : a government that focuses on monitoring, regulating and monitoring performance indicators, investing increasingly in public-private partnerships to deliver services;
• People : an administration that manages people, selecting well, monitoring performance, developing and adopting a consequences policy, managing the payroll;
• Purchasing : a more agile and intelligent system is needed;
• Budget : it is necessary to unlink, deindex and unlock the budget, making it more dynamic and simple to execute;
• Modernization of control : today, the incentive for public agents is to say no, to do things the same way; control is important, but it cannot kill initiative and innovation;
• Digital government : continue and deepen the digital transformation of the Brazilian State, making life easier for citizens and streamlining internal processes.

He states that institutional performance indicators and performance management of public servants, as proposed in the preliminary drafts, are fundamental, but not sufficient.

Arnaldo Lima of Polo Capital also states that, to ensure effectiveness, the reform should incorporate mechanisms for direct evaluation by society. Furthermore, it would be essential to establish transparent comparisons between the public and private sectors, especially regarding starting salaries, given that public servants work fewer hours (40 versus 44 hours per week), enjoy job security, and, in many cases, receive higher salaries.

He also mentions that incentives for transition to the private sector should be included, with portability of the special social security benefit, functioning as a PDV (Voluntary Dismissal Plan) instrument for statutory employees.

Regarding mobility, he also argues that the transfer of employees who receive a proposal for a management position in another agency should be mandatory, promoting meritocracy and productivity gains.

"With 36,912 commissioned positions and functions for 573,485 civil servants (16.6% of the total), it is essential that leadership positions are filled based on merit and that progression based on length of service is restricted, as already occurs in state-owned companies after the labor reform," he said.