Bill decentralizing teachers' pay gets approval of Lower House

CEBU - The House of Representatives has finally approved on third and final reading the proposed measure transferring to the regions the processing and releasing of public school teachers’ salaries to ensure they receive their checks on time.

Cebu First District Rep. Eduardo “Eddigul” Gullas, the principal sponsor of the House Bill No. 4981, said he was happy that the decentralization of the teachers’ payroll system has been approved in the House so that teachers will no longer have to go to Manila whenever they encounter problems with their salaries.

House Bill No. 4981 decentralizes the Payroll Services Division of the Department of Education, which has been tasked to handle the printing and distribution of the salary of public school teachers since the department’s creation.

The “regionalized payroll service” was principally authored by then Cebu First District Rep. Jose Gullas, Eddigul’s brother, during his first term in 2004.

The first salary checks printed by the DepEd in Region VII were distributed to some 30 public elementary school teachers in Cebu on June 22, 2004.

Eddigul said that majority of the public school teachers or 80 percent of the teaching staff in the elementary level has continued to endure the inconvenience of getting paid by Manila-based payroll service division.

With the decentralization of the payroll service division, he added teachers can easily follow up on their salaries without spending their hard earned resources in going to the capital.

Jose Gullas has filed House Bill 2542 or the Act Regionalizing the Department of Education Payroll Service Division.

Otherwise known as An Act Providing for the Regionalization of the DepEd Services Division, the bill mandates the establishment of a Regional Payroll Services Unit in every regional office of the DepEd, including the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.

Under the bill, the RPSU shall have the responsibility of processing, printing, and distributing the salary checks of public elementary and secondary school teachers, including those of non-teaching personnel.

The RPSU will provide a pay slip containing information on the date of the issuance of the check, total salary due for a given period, itemized deductions, and the amount being released.

Furthermore, the RPSU shall adopt needed measures to ensure that teachers and non-teaching personnel will receive their checks not later than three days before the due date, which is at the end of each month.

The RPSU is also mandated to take necessary steps to ensure complaints from teachers and non teaching personnel—for unauthorized deductions, over-deductions, non-deductions, and other salary-related problems—are attended to within seven days from receipt of such complaints. — Garry B. Lao/WAB (THE FREEMAN)