THE Commission on Audit (COA) has questioned the P15.3 million the previous administration of Mandaue City spent for the overtime pay of employees, based on its annual audit report in 2018.
According to the summary of actual overtime expenses of each department, the mayor’s office spent the most with P3.37 million, followed by the treasurer’s office, P2.3 million; accountant’s office, P1.7 million; Department of General Services, P1 million; assessor’s office, P912,879.53; engineering office, P830,427.59; city health, P782,530.28; city veterinary, P740,706.70; budget office, P553,117.83; Department of Social Welfare and Development, P467,468.82; Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office, P439,065.72; city market, P422,023.18; Human Resource and Management Office, P412,890.54.
The Accident Control Emergency Rescue Team also spent P400,644 for the overtime pay of its employees; city agriculture, P294,363.25; City Council, P202,472.96; slaughterhouse, P150,633.12; non-office, P147,749.40; civil registrar, P59,641.16; Housing and Urban Development Office, P50,111.01; and City Environment and Natural Resources Office, P24,368.40.
State auditors found deficiencies on sampled disbursement vouchers and supporting documents of the bids and awards committee under the Office of the Mayor.
One of these is that the overtime authority did not state the necessity and urgency of the work to be done and the duration of overtime work.
They cited Civil Service Commission (CSC) and Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Joint Circular No. 1, which provides that “the payment in cash of overtime services through overtime pay may be authorized only in exceptional cases when the application of compensatory time-off for all overtime hours would adversely affect the operations of the agency.”
State auditors also found the accomplishment reports to be generic, repetitive and without the specific work or task and output per person.
Section 4 of the joint CSC and DBM circular lists priority activities “that may warrant rendition of overtime services and other activities as are needed to meet performance targets or deliver services to the public as may be determined by the agency head.” (from SCG of SuperBalita Cebu/PJB)