Honoraria for Cebu City BEIs to be delayed

Cuevas

THE honoraria for the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) serving in Cebu City for the May 9 elections may be delayed, the Cebu City Treasurer’s Office said yesterday.

Cebu City Treasurer Diwa Cuevas said they did not receive yet the budget proposal from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) including the items that need funding from the city.

Over 3,000 public school teachers will be serving on election day. However, Cuevas said the teachers serving in the elections will still receive the P1,500 honorarium.

The budget for the poll honorarium of the BEIs is supposedly charged to the P40-million election reserve this year, but the annual budget has been revised and returned to the City Council for deliberation.

“It can be charged to another City-sponsored Activities but with the approval of the council and in one condition: once the 2016 budget will be approved, the budget should be returned,” Cuevas said.

“We need the council’s resolution, then we cannot give that right away. After the election, the Comelec will submit list of the BEIs and that’s the time we will process,” Cuevas said.

Cebu Daily News tried but was unable to contact Comelec Cebu City north district election officer Edwin Cadungog on the budget proposal.

Last March 30, the Council approved a P15.8-million budget for election expenses. The budget is charged to the P42-million City-Sponsored Activities item from the reenacted 2015 budget.

Diwa said the amount only covers the retraining of BEIs and the training of the third member of every clustered precinct as well as the purchase of supplies.

She said the overtime pay of 20 CTO employees tasked to distribute the ballot boxes had been charged to their office until May 8 when it will eventually be charged to the election reserve budget.

They will also submit to the Cebu City Police Office a copy of the daily recording of the closed-circuit TV cameras where the ballot boxes are stored.