NEGROS Occidental Acting Provincial Administrator Lucille Gelvolea explained on Monday, January 7, the creation of new offices and positions in the provincial government is legal and based on need.
This stemmed from the findings of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) disallowing the Provincial Government's 2018 allocation of P504,457,935 because it exceeded the limit for Personnel Services (PS).
Gelvolea said that Local Finance Committee will submit its recommendations to Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr.
"Until then, we will just have to wait for the action of the governor," she said.
Mae Chua, DBM regional director, in a letter to Marañon on November 5, 2018, said the 2018 Annual Budget of the province of Negros Occidental was submitted to the DBM IV for review and was declared inoperative in part.
The amount to P504,457,935 was disallowed as it represents the excess of the PS cap limitation, Chua said.
Chua pointed out that the positions in the Human Resource (HR) department and Organic Farming Division should be disallowed considering that while they were created in 2017, they were only funded in the 2018 annual budget.
The provincial government exceeded its PS cap by P106 million in 2015, P199 million in 2016, P298 million in 2017, and P504 million in 2018, Chua said.
Gelvolea admitted that the Capitol is already over 45 percent PS limit last year.
"We hired the required personnel of the organizational structure of the Provincial Government," she added.
"The salary is high now because of the implementation of the Salary Standardization Law. Right now because of PS limit, we have lowered our budget for Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses," she said.
Gelvolea said the Capitol went over the personnel cap because of the personnel requirements imposed in the 11 district hospitals and provincial hospital by the Department of Health.
There were seven posts created for the Organic Farming Division and the HR department had 15 newly-created positions with higher salary grades.
"We will ensure that the personnel affected will be helped," Gelvolea said.
