COA to employ cyclical audit on schools

The Commission on Audit has decided to conduct a cyclical audit among the National High Schools in the country.

COA recently issued resolution 2006-05 implementing a cyclical audit among the numerous national high schools in the country instead of the usual annual audit.

According to the resolution, only a total of 1,353 out of the 4, 729 national high schools have a separate set of books of accounts as of December 2005 as a result of the direct release of funding to these schools from the Department of Budget and Management.

Section 10 of Republic Act 9155 or the Governance of Basic Education Act provides that the appropriations intended for the regional and provincial elementary and secondary schools and schools divisions are to be allocated and released immediately by DBM directly.

The said number of national high schools renders it physically impossible to audit on an annual basis.

With this, the COA resolves to adopt the policy of cyclical or variable scope audits of the high schools with complete sets of books of accounts.

The schools financial exposure to schools, those undergoing changes in operations, systems and or administration, results of previous audit and those schools that are subject of complaints are to be prioritized in the setting up of the cyclical schedule.