PROVINCE STILL HAS P134M FOR EDUCATION

Accumulated funds from previous years were added to this year’s Special Education Fund

The Cebu Provincial Budget Office has P134 million for the fiscal year 2017 to spend for projects under the Special Education Fund (SEF).

In an interview with Sunstar Cebu, Provincial Budget Officer Danilo Rodas said that as of yes- terday, they have started projects worth P119 million out of the P134 million for the whole year.

“We have a balance of around P14 million still unallocated for projects for 2017,” Rodas said.

Rodas said they allocated P30 million for school buildings and distributed chairs and textbooks to different schools. They have also done repair works in schools under the Department of Education (DepEd) worth P80 million.

Rodas said that the 2016 annual budget for SEF was P151 million compared to the P134 million for

The SEF, which is one percent of the real property tax of Cebu Province under Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code, has a minimum of P19 million every year.

2017 because there were funds in the previous years which were not used and was carried over.

He said the SEF, which is one percent of the real property tax of Cebu Province under Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code, has a minimum of P19 million every year.

However, the accumulated funds that were not used from the previous years were added to the P19 million to make it P134 million for 2017.

Usually, unspent funds are caused by some interventions, failure of bidding or lack of personnel.

All the SEF projects costing more than P1 million will be bid based on RA 9184, the Government Procurement Act.