SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian on Friday bewailed the low utilization of the Special Education Fund despite the clamor of local government units for additional funding for education.

Gatchalian cited a report from the Department of Finance’s Bureau of Local Government Finance, which revealed that P15 billion of the SEF was underutilized.

“There seems to be a huge underutilization of the SEF. I don’t know how come that in 2021, the underutilized SEF was as big as P15 billion. I assume that the SEF is always fully utilized because every time I talk to LGUs, there seems to be a big need on the ground for additional support to their education needs,” Gatchalian said.

BLGF Officer-in-Charge Ma. Pamela Quizon reported that in 2019, the utilization rate of the SEF was only 66.7 percent.

For 2020 and 2021, the utilization rates were 67.9 percent and 63.8 percent, respectively.

Quizon said that LGUs cited procurement issues and the limitation on how the fund can be utilized as the reasons behind the low utilization of SEF funds.

The SEF is allotted for local school boards for the operation and maintenance of school buildings and the construction and repair of school buildings.

Gatchalian filed Senate Bill 155 or the proposed 21st Century School Boards Act which seeks to expand the coverage of the SEF to include, among others, the salaries and wages of teachers and non-teaching personnel in public elementary and secondary schools, operation and maintenance of ALS programs, salaries and wages of pre-school teachers, capital outlay for pre-schools, and honorarium and allowances for teachers and non-teaching personnel for services rendered outside of school hours.