DUMAGUETE CITY, July 1 (PNA) -– Dumaguete City Mayor Manuel Sagarbarria has assured that the “best gift” he can offer to the 451 casual plantilla employees of the city government is for the charging of their salaries and wages to the lump sum appropriation and not to the Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) which the Commission on Audit (COA) said is a violation of existing regulations.
As a result, the city’s personnel services budget was P63 million higher, according to Mayor Sagarbarria, who was bombarded with queries on why the city government cannot give the one-time grant of the Productivity Enhancement Incentive (PEI) as ordered by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III.
Sagarbarria said COA was correct but he is surprised to know why this was allowed during the past 28 years where salaries and wages of casual plantilla workers were then charged against the MOOE.
He said casual plantilla employees have reasons to be thankful about because none of them was terminated in the process of changing the appropriation from MOOE to lump sum.
Luckily, the 45 percent personnel services limitation did not reach the limit yet with more than P1 million remaining.
Due to the additional P63 million charged to personnel services of the city, it cannot anymore extend the PEI to 572 regular and 451 casual employees of Dumaguete.
However, in 2016, the 45 percent PS limitation is expected to increase up to P220 million compared to this year’s PS of more than P201 million only.
Thus, more benefits can be extended to employees next year, the mayor pointed out.
Sagarbarria is also looking for ways and means to increase the daily take home pay of job order employees numbering about 300 in Dumaguete of up to P310 a day as minimum before he leaves the city.
Although not bound by the regulations of the Department of Labor and Employment, Sagarbarria said he wanted their daily pay to reach P310 which is the minimum pay for employees in the private sector.
The city has increased their pay by P30 per day or an equivalent of almost P8,000 in one year, compared to what they were supposed to receive during Christmas of P1,500 only, Sagarbarria disclosed. (PNA)