The São José dos Campos (SP) City Council decided to postpone the vote on Mayor Anderson Farias’ (PSD) bill establishing a municipal lottery. The bill was scheduled to be analyzed at Thursday’s (21) session. However, the proposal did not advance due to a lack of consensus, including among members of the governing coalition.
The City Council received the bill on June 4th, under an urgent procedure. Since the council members failed to review it within 45 days, the agenda was suspended. Consequently, the House could only vote on other matters after evaluating the proposal, and the session ended just minutes after it began.
Proposal details
According to the text, the City Hall may operate the service directly or indirectly, through concessions, permits, or authorizations. The bill, however, does not provide an estimated revenue for the municipality from the lottery.
In his justification, Anderson Farias stated that “the creation of a municipal lottery is an effective alternative for generating revenue to support public policies, while also enabling regulatory and oversight action by the municipal administration, ensuring the protection and security of citizens.”
History of attempts to create a municipal lottery
In November 2021, two council members from the governing coalition filed a similar bill. However, the City Council unanimously approved the proposal in November of last year. The following month, however, the mayor vetoed the bill.
At the time, the mayor argued that “the implementation of the bill will imply expenses to the municipal treasury”, but “that the proposal was not accompanied by studies of the budgetary and financial impact, nor of compensation, and there was no indication of the origin of the resources necessary to cover the expenses that it aims to create”.
Despite the previous veto, the project presented by the Executive in June also does not include a budgetary and financial impact study.