The study analyzes the financing of municipal education networks in the State of Rio de Janeiro and the challenges for local educational policy management, based in case studies in the municipalities of Angra dos Reis, Itaboraí and Teresópolis. In order to do so, we used the information on enrollment, from the Censo Escolar, regarding the enrollment of the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatísticas (IBGE), of finance, based on information from the Finanças dos Municípios Fluminenses yearbook and, above all, information on education expenditures, provided in the the Sistema de Informações sobre Orçamentos Públicos em Educação. It was thus possible to trace the profile of education financing in the municipalities of the State and its challenges for the provision of quality education. As a complementary research strategy, interviews were conducted with technicians and managers of the respective municipal education agencies, as well as trade unionists. The interlocution with the literature and the empirical material produced allowed us to identify the organization of the analysis around the following axes: division of responsibilities in the provision of enrollments in the priority levels of action of the municipalities, design of the financing policy, local political context and local bureaucratic capacity to manage the funding of education networks. In the 1970s, Rio de Janeiro municipalities accounted for a large part of primary school enrollment, although municipalization was accelerated after the implementation of Fundef. The increase in the obligation to offer free basic education to those aged between 4 and 17 years from 2010 has increased the responsibility of municipalities for the creation of new school vacancies. Although Fundef s replacement of Fundeb in 2007 has favored funding for early childhood education, we note that the current design of funding policy is not sufficient for the promotion of quality public education, in fuction the federal government reduced participation in the financing of basic education and the limited economic and managerial capacity of the municipalities, also aggravated by the discontinuity of local policies and their management. Against this backdrop, it is necessary to redefine, at the national level, the role of each federated entity, by regulating the collaboration regime provided for in the Federal Constitution of 1988, as well as changes in the Fundeb, expected to be in force until 2020 and imposing a loss of financial resources to several municipalities of the State, the design of the financing policy, the implementation of the Cost-Student Initial Quality and later the Cost-Student Quality, as provided for in the Plano Nacional de Educação. At the local level, it is necessary to define clearer rules for the composition and permanence and the ongoing formation of the bureaucracies that work in the municipal secretariats of education and the effective social control of the resources of education, with the Siope important instrumental in the search of quality public education.