Brazilian media said Mr Dornelles had asked the country’s acting president Michel Temer for almost 900 million dollars (£625 million) in emergency funds for the state government, but a decision was not announced.
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He has asked for federal funds to help avoid a total collapse in public security, health, education, transport and environmental management. The state governor has requested additional federal support to honour its commitments for public services during the Olympic Games, which is set to begin on 5 August.
The city of Rio de Janeiro – not the state – is largely responsible for the Olympics.
The text states that “the competent authorities shall issue normative acts necessary for the regulation of the state of public calamity, in order for the Olympics [to take place]”.
A Brazilian indigenous man holds the Olympic torch upon its arrival in Belem, Para state, Brazil on June 15, 2016, ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Francisco Dornelles’s decision will allow Rio’s state government to change its budgetary priorities without breaching Brazil’s fiscal laws.
“The state’s financial emergency in no way delays the delivery of Olympic projects and the promises assumed by the city of Rio”, Mayor Eduardo Paes said on Twitter.
President Dilma Rousseff was suspended last month by the Brazilian Senate, and will face an impeachment trial next month.
After much pleading, Rio received almost $300 million from the federal coffers to extend its metro network to link the main Olympic zone of Barra da Tijuca with the chic Ipanema district. And the government is confronted with double-digit inflation, unemployment at a record 11 percent.
The financial emergency is just the latest crisis to hit Brazil.
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Brazil plans to deploy around 85,000 soldiers and police during the Olympics, roughly double the number used at the London 2012 Games. The country’s president is facing impeachment proceedings and the country is in the middle of an economic recession.
