Fatores que afetam o planejamento orçamentário dos municípios de Mato Grosso do Sul

Abstract

Although the literature has addressed the issue of budgetary accuracy of public entities, in Brazil, the topic is still largely unexplored. The public budget is the main instrument for planning the financial management of the State, and its importance transcends that of a mere instrument for authorizing expenditures, constituting an essential tool for transparency in the management of public resources. Despite this relevance, interest in the budget has been largely restricted to public officials involved in the budget cycle, i.e., those responsible for its preparation, review, execution, control, and evaluation. This limited social interest stems mainly from its complexity, lack of transparency, and apparent detachment from social reality. In this context, budgetary inaccuracy contributes to the population’s lack of interest, since an inaccurate budget requires constant revisions, either due to overestimation or underestimation of revenues and expenditures, creating the perception that the public budget is a mere formality. This study evaluated the accuracy of budget revenue and expenditure forecasts for 79 municipalities in Mato Grosso do Sul from 2018 to 2022 and investigated factors that affect the accuracy of forecasts. Accuracy was analyzed using the mean absolute error (MAE), an indicator that expresses the average distance, in absolute terms, between the forecast values and the actual values. To test the hypotheses about the determinants of inaccuracy, an econometric model with panel data was applied, including the municipalities’ budget execution. The results revealed consistent growth in the MAE of forecasts, both for revenues and expenditures, with emphasis on election years (2020 and 2022) and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Regarding the factors that affect budget accuracy, the regression analysis identified that revenue, elections, and the pandemic affected the accuracy of expenditure forecasts. The positive effect of revenue on expenditure forecast errors was approximately 0.89%. A 1% increase in revenue raised the expenditure forecast error by 0.89%. The pandemic raised errors by 11.74% in 2021. The effect of the elections on forecast errors was about 22.14% in 2020 and 54.68% in 2022. The study emphasizes the need to improve revenue forecasting methods and adopt differentiated management strategies, contributing both to academic debate and to the improvement of public management.