Fiscal decentralization and local spending on environmental management: An exploratory study of the municipalities in the Brazilian state of São Paulo

Abstract

This article presents a longitudinal analysis of spending for environmental management by the 645 municipalities of the Brazilian state of São Paulo during the period covering 2005-2014, seeking to systematize answers about the importance of environmental actions as revealed through spending at the local level. The research problem is linked to questions about the relevance of environmental issues to the public agenda and how those issues are actually translated into local spending. Findings indicate that the environmental question, although complex, urgent and recipient of media attention, was not, in fact, seen as a priority by municipal managers in years between 2005 and 2014. Environmental spending by the municipalities of São Paulo state were insignificant in terms of their proportion of local budgets. In 2014, the year of the water crisis in the São Paulo state, only nine municipalities made expenditures for Water Resources.