Budget revenue as a determinant of transparency level in federal universities of the central-west region: an analysis through general purpose accounting reports

Abstract

Transparency as a means of providing public information is a governance practice that ensures citizens' right to access information. In the case of Federal Universities (FUs), as public institutions belonging to the Federal Executive Branch and as Units Providing Accounts (UPAs), one way to access their information is through the General Purpose Accounting Reports of Entities of the Public Sector (GPAR’s), made available on their respective websites. The objective of this study was to analyze the influence of Total Budget Revenue on the transparency index of accounting information of Federal Universities in the Midwest region of Brazil. In the first stage, to determine the level of transparency of the GPAR’s of FUs, a scale of intensity was used, resulting in UFGD and UFG with the highest performance (83.61% and 81.97%, respectively), followed by UnB (72.13%), UFMS (67.21%), UFMT (49.18%), UFJ (45.90%), UFCat (32.79%), and finally, UFR (18.03%). In the second stage, it was possible to understand that the variables Total Budget Revenue, Total Assets of FUs at the end of the period, and Current Expenses are negatively related to the level of transparency. On the other hand, Expenses with Active Personnel and Fixed Assets are positively related to the level of transparency. The study shows, however, that there are still tasks to be carried out and fulfilled so that FUs can be considered truly transparent, and not conditioned by certain variables.