The Federal Supreme Court’s order to review the so-called “hangings” of civil service revealed a much broader and more sophisticated system than the examples cited in Minister Flávio Dino’s decision.
Behind curious aid and non-transparent bonuses, there is today a mechanism made up of thousands of items used to raise salaries in the public service above the constitutional ceiling, especially in the Judiciary and the Public Ministry.
Transparency Brazil survey, published by the newspaper The Globeshows that in these two areas alone there are around 3,000 different denominations of benefits recorded on paychecks.
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The count even considered minimal variations in nomenclature, such as the use of hyphens or different spellings. To make the analysis viable, the researchers grouped the headings into large blocks, still arriving at approximately 60 distinct categories.
Even after this consolidation, the volume draws attention. One of the largest groups is bonuses, which total 18 different types. There are payments associated with the accumulation of processes, administrative functions, electoral activities, teaching, participation in internal affairs bodies or boards and even participation in courses and competitions. Each of these functions can generate a permanent or temporary addition to the base salary.
Another relevant set is aid, with at least 11 modalities mapped. These include benefits linked to food, housing, transportation, education, health, moving, funeral and telephone services. Although many have formal justification, the accumulation of these installments helps to inflate the monthly remuneration without directly violating the ceiling, as a large part is classified as compensation funds.
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The survey also identified less intuitive items, inherited from old salary disputes. One example is the URV, linked to the recovery of losses in the transition to the real in the 1990s. Another is the so-called “entrance difference”, which pays magistrates according to the size of the district in which they work. There is also PAE, an acronym for “autonomous portion of equivalence”, used to equate salaries of the Judiciary and the Public Ministry with those of the Legislature.
According to Transparência Brasil, the absence of clear national rules favored a dynamic of automatic replication of these benefits. When a career creates a new addition, others tend to adopt a similar mechanism to avoid being left behind. The result is a silent increase in paychecks, with a direct impact on public accounts.
It was this scenario that led Minister Flávio Dino to order public bodies to review the extra payments. In the decision, he cited symbolic examples of questionable benefits, but the diagnosis goes beyond specific cases.
