Ulsan Office of Education Achieves Top National Rank in 2021 Budget Execution Rate

Ulsan Office of Education.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Du-yeol] Ulsan Metropolitan Office of Education achieved a top-tier nationwide ranking in financial execution results for 2021.

Ulsan Metropolitan Office of Education executed 2.0403 trillion KRW, exceeding the Ministry of Education's financial execution target of 2.005 trillion KRW by 35.3 billion KRW.

Among the 17 city and provincial offices of education nationwide, Ulsan ranked third in financial execution and secured an additional 5 billion KRW in performance incentives due to surpassing the Ministry of Education's target.

To exceed the financial execution target, Ulsan Metropolitan Office of Education improved the budget allocation method for facility project expenses, fully utilized customized welfare expenses, expedited execution of various construction costs such as advance payments, progress payments, and completion payments, and promoted early procurement of goods and equipment. They also carried out a 'Good Consumption Movement' including advance payments to support local small business owners.

The Ulsan Metropolitan Office of Education cites the improvement in the budget allocation method for facility project expenses as a key factor in their performance.

Facility project expenses are mostly carried out during winter vacation due to school curriculum operation reasons, inevitably causing unused and unexecuted funds annually.

To solve this chronic issue, Ulsan Metropolitan Office of Education prepared the 'Improvement Plan for Budget Allocation and Execution of Facility Project Expenses' through collaboration among the budget department, facility department, and contract department.

The core is the introduction of a continuing budget system for second-year school educational environment improvement construction projects.

The plan involves the facility department identifying actual execution amounts based on annual progress, and the budget department converting these into continuing budgets.

After conversion, the contract department expands the continuing budget system to school educational environment improvement projects with a two-year construction period by utilizing phased contracts.

Thanks to these institutional improvements, Ulsan Metropolitan Office of Education increased the financial execution rate and reduced the rate of unused and unexecuted funds.

They reduced the unused and unexecuted fund rate from 4.6% in the previous year to 2.3% in 2021, a 50% decrease, enhancing the efficiency of education finance management.

Looking at the trend of unused and unexecuted fund rates, it started at 15.2% in 2005 and peaked at 17.7% in 2013.

After a slight decline in recent years, it sharply dropped to 2.3% in 2021, marking the highest level nationwide and the best performance ever.

The office of education also improved the school budget support method.

In the second supplementary budget, they moved away from the previous TOP-DOWN approach where the education office established project plans and provided lump-sum support to schools, instead reflecting individual demands of each school.

This new method, called the 'Field-Oriented School Current Issues Project,' supported 18.2 billion KRW, maximizing the effect of budget input.

Ulsan Metropolitan Office of Education operated the 'Ulsan Education Finance Execution Management Inspection Team,' led by Deputy Superintendent Lee Yong-gyun, on a weekly basis to monitor financial execution status by institution.

The inspection team encouraged prompt execution by providing consulting and discovering institutional improvement tasks for projects facing difficulties in execution.

A city education office official stated, "We will strive to efficiently utilize limited resources through continuous institutional improvements and interdepartmental collaboration."

Ulsan Metropolitan Office of Education also secured 1 billion KRW in performance incentives with the second-highest financial execution rate nationwide in the first half of 2021.

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