THE DEPARTMENT of Education introduced and implemented several financial management interventions, including decreasing the amount of unliquidated cash advance over the years to assist the central office and field units.

“The Department of Education is dedicated to efficiently utilize its budget in accordance with its mandate of delivering quality, equitable, culture-based, and complete basic education,” the agency said in a statement.

The intervention has proven to be a success as the agency secured a 29.78 percent decrease of UCA from P2,737,798,732.74 in 2018 to P1,922,340,516.26 in 2019.

“We would like to also note that this is the accumulated total of UCA of the entire operating units of the Department, which is close to 62,000 offices and schools,” it said.

DepEd noted the success of minimizing the accumulation of UCAs was associated with non-implementing units/schools which can now maintain their own set of bank accounts, such that fund releases to them are no longer treated as cash advance.

“This measure was introduced since a big portion of the UCA covers fund releases to the schools that still do not maintain its own set of books of accounts. All elementary schools and some secondary schools are what we refer to as non-implementing unit schools. These schools still have no finance staff on their plantilla, thus all fund transfers to them are recorded as cash advance,” DepEd said.

“Strict monitoring of UCA by DepEd heads of offices. The no-liquidation, no next cash advance policy shall continue to be strictly implemented. This was applied since some Schools Division Offices were not able to meet the cut-off date of December 31, 2019, while some have issues with complying with the documentary requirements.”

DepEs also clarified these recorded unliquidated cash advances were supported by evaluated and validated liquidation reports.

“We hope to continue these interventions in our finances, in the spirit of transparency, accountability, and efficient public service,” the agency said.

The Commission on Audit earlier said DepEd has accumulated P1.9 billion worth of unliquidated cash advance as of December 31, 2019.