Yesterday morning Juan Partida Morales and José Luis Tostado Bastida gave the House of Studies a written response after their meeting on August 27.
It was concurred that the reallocation of 140 million pesos for the construction of the Hospital Civil de Oriente in Tonalá is neither illegal nor does it violate the autonomy of the University of Guadalajara.
The Government of Jalisco stated this in a reply letter given to the House of Studies, which also respectfully suggested to the university that within its own budget there are 1,200 million pesos available for the continuation of the works of the Museum of Environmental Sciences.
Regarding the affirmations made by the UdeG Commission that the budget adjustment violates university autonomy, that it is not adjusted to the regulations and that the budgetary resources had already been committed, the Executive Power affirms the following:
The Government of Jalisco did not violate university autonomy by reallocating resources to the project of the Hospital Civil de Oriente (HCO,) since there is a resolution of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation that establishes that the powers of the UdeG are not absolute, and that the public resources received by the House of Studies are applicable to the Budget Law, the Budgetary Guidelines for the Public Administration, and the Expenditure Budget Decree in force that establishes that the budgetary provisions will be subject to the obtaining of income and to financial availability, so they are subject to variations. Under this logic, as long as the University did not receive the budgeted resource, it cannot be considered that it has actually entered its patrimony, and therefore there is no violation of university autonomy.
The reallocation of resources is not illegal either, given that the Budget, Accounting, and Public Expenditure Law establishes the powers of the State Governor to administer the treasury and public finances, as well as to apply the purpose of the Budget Law with respect to regulating the principles of balance, financial sustainability, and fiscal responsibility; and regulate actions related to financial programming, budgeting, exercise, accounting, control, surveillance, transparency, and evaluation of the performance of state public spending, while the House of Studies, as an obligated public entity, you have to comply with this law.
Likewise, the Fifth and Eighth transitory articles of the Expenditure Budget Decree of the State of Jalisco for 2021 provide the authorization to the head of the Executive Power to carry out the budgetary programmatic adjustments in the Central or Parastatal Public Administration, as well as to carry out the necessary budgetary adjustments for care, prevention, and containment of the Covid-19 pandemic, therefore, the letter reiterates that such reassignment is not illegal.
In other words, the budgeted resources for the construction of the Museum of Environmental Sciences, until the date of review by the Ministry of Finance, were not committed in the terms established by law, which is why the power to contain balances was exercised. Available by sub-exercise established in article 14 of the Budget Guidelines for Public Administration and in accordance with the request of the deputies, it was allocated to the construction of the HCO.
“The University of Guadalajara did not complete the specific processes necessary to register the commitment of budget sufficiency before the Ministry of Public Finance in due time and form, so there were no formal commitments that linked the exercise of public spending under item '4156 Internal transfers granted to non-business and non-financial parastatal entities for Public Investment (University Cultural Center.) Consequently, it was legally feasible to use the uncommitted financial availabilities in order to redirect them and allocate them for the attention of a priority project,” the letter states.
In the fourth point of the document, the Government of Jalisco suggests to the University three options for provision of resources amounting to 1.2 billion pesos and thereby carry out the project of the Museum of Environmental Sciences. The Trust for Infrastructure of the University Network, for example, has available balances of 1.043 billion pesos; there is a surplus income of 51.37 million pesos, which would reach up to 100 million pesos for all of 2021; and savings in current spending of between 10-12% due to the reduction in basic services derived from the suspension of classes from the pandemic, which represents up to 96 million pesos.
The complete letter can be consulted here: http://gobjal.mx/RespetoAutonomíaUDG