Custos na administração pública: um estudo de caso na Secretaria da Fazenda do Estado do Ceará

Abstract

The search for alternatives of costs reduction and effectiveness optimization in the services provided to civil society by the public administration has been a great challenge for specialists and managers of the public sector in Brazil. Nowadays, there is a consensus about the need to endow the Government with more effective management mechanisms of expenses: the issue “control” returned to the center of debates. With this new paradigm, the ideal of "Quality in Public Expenses" is consolidated. This issue was urged with the Institutional and Administrative reform of the public sector in Brazil which has the Constitutional Amendment nº. 19 and the Fiscal Responsibility Law as guidelines. In this context, the present work aims to evaluate the level of use of the information generated from the Costs Monitoring System, by managers from The Ceará State Treasure Secretary (Sefaz/CE), in the decision-making process. The method of the case study was applied in the Organization by raising relevant bibliography from statistic information of Sefaz/CE and by applying a questionnaire and interviewing managers of the Institution. The collected data showed that, although Institutional managers acknowledge the importance of refining costs to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of actions results and Costs Monitoring System as a management tool for The Ceará State Treasure Secretary (Sefaz/CE), most of them don’t use it as a resource in the decision making process. From this diagnose Sefaz/CE could take actions to stimulate its use, by all managers of the Organization, as a significant tool in management decision, which would enable a more rational use of resources.