Mandaue employees likely to reimburse additional cash gifts

Mandaue City employees and officials are most likely to reimburse the extra cash gifts they had received early this month.

But acting city budget officer Magno V. Garcia said he still has to discuss the matter with the Local Finance Committee as the letter of Department of Budget and Management regional director Carmela Fernan on the 'extra cash gift' still has to be verified.

Fernan, in her letter addressed to the City Council and Mayor Thadeo Ouano, stated that Supplemental Budget Nos. 6 and 7 involving the appropriation of P8.3 million and P18 million passed by the council had been complied with substantially.

Fernan said the budgets are considered operative due to the date of their effectivity. But the appropriation for additional/extra cash gift will no longer be allowed as the city has already exceeded its 45 percent limit for fund allocations for personal services.

Pursuant to the Local Budget Memorandum No. 2005-48, extra cash gift should be within the personal services limitation under section 325 (a) of RA 7160.

"The said benefit is not among those in which favor the PS (personal services) limitation has been waived," the letter stated.

Fernan stated that the unused calamity fund forms part of the unappropriated surplus of the General Fund, which will be used as source for appropriations in the ensuing year. "Hence, it cannot be used to pay the additional/extra cash gift."

The P18 million that the city had appropriated for the additional cash gifts came from its unused P21-million calamity fund.

Early this month, the city government released the extra cash gifts to its 2,300 employees. But prior to this, the employees were made to sign a deed of undertaking stipulating that in case of disallowance, they will reimburse the benefit they received.

Councilor Wenceslao Gakit, chairman of the council committee on budget and finance, said that based on the DBM memorandum issued on December 7, 2005, the city government is allowed to give extra cash gifts provided the funds come from the city's savings.

The DBM memorandum stated that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has approved the LGUs' requests for additional cash benefit to their officials and employees for fiscal year 2005.

Regular employees and officials have received extra cash gifts equivalent to their monthly salary while the casual and program employees received P5,000 each.

Each TEDMAN employees received P6,000; clean and green workers, P3,000; and barangay health nutrition workers and street educators, P1,000. - Mitchelle P. Calipayan