Budget flexibility in face of the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Budget planning, made through the Multiannual Plan, the Budget Guidelines Law, and the Annual Budget Law, is the first phase of the public budget, which is followed by its enforcement, which must comply with these legal guidelines, despite the restrictions imposed by Law No. 4,320/64 and the Budget Responsibility Law. However, there are some budgetary flexibility mechanisms, which allow the budget to be adapted to situations in which the some previous budgetary dispositions are no longer suitable with the needs during its enforcement. The current health crisis by the new coronavirus is part of the range of situations whose unpredictability makes it impossible to match the expenses described in the previously built budget with what is actually necessary to cope with it. Therefore, the use of budgetary flexibility mechanisms allows the Executive Power to act quickly in its situation. The present work analyzes, from the study of the possibilities of budgetary flexibility, the mechanisms used to make the budget more flexible in the face of the pandemic, such as the recent Complementary Law No. 173 and Constitutional Amendment No. 106.