Incheon Office of Education Submits Revised 2nd Supplementary Budget with 100 Billion Won Cut from General Grants... Disruption to Educational Projects

Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] Due to a significant cut in the general grants received from the government, the Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education is inevitably facing setbacks in the educational projects it planned to pursue.

On the 12th, the Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education announced that it submitted a revised budget proposal of 4.2009 trillion KRW, reflecting a reduction of 109.4 billion KRW (2.5%) in the second supplementary budget of 2020, to the Incheon City Council.

This reflects a cut of 109.4 billion KRW in the general grants allocated to the city education office, as the Ministry of Education reduced the general grants distributed to each metropolitan and provincial office of education. The government, which prepared the largest third supplementary budget in history, anticipated lower-than-expected national tax revenues, leading to a 2.1 trillion KRW reduction in the local education finance grants linked to those revenues.

In the revised budget, the Incheon Office of Education excluded 600 million KRW for the Basic Academic Achievement Support Project, 9.5 billion KRW for improvements to vocational high school environments, and 500 million KRW for establishing student self-governance spaces in the Student Education and Culture Center.

The 1.6 billion KRW cost for relocating Dorim High School in Namdong-gu to Seochang 2 District was also removed from this revised budget and will be reflected in next year’s main budget depending on the project’s progress.

Additionally, although there was a plan to allocate 107 billion KRW to the Education Finance Stabilization Fund for the establishment of nine new schools including Geomdan 2 Elementary School from next year onward, only 11.4 billion KRW will be allocated due to the significant cut in general grants.

The shortfall in funds for new school construction will be addressed by extensively reorganizing policy projects in the second half of this year and securing resources through restructuring expenditure projects when preparing the 2021 main budget.

The revised budget proposal will be finalized at the plenary session after review by the City Council’s Education Standing Committee and the Special Budget and Accounts Committee on the 26th.

Do Seong-hoon, Superintendent of Incheon Metropolitan Office of Education, stated, "With the COVID-19 pandemic causing difficulties not only for the national economy but also the global economy, the Incheon Office of Education, which relies on external funding for more than 90% of its budget, is facing a challenging period in managing its budget. We will do our best to operate the education office’s finances stably."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.