Conflict Between Daegu City and Education Office Over Free Meal Audit ... "Exaggerating Issues" vs "Duty to Citizens"

Lee Yusil, Chairperson of the Daegu City Audit Committee, is holding a press conference on the 15th.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Koo Dae-sun] Daegu City and Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education have come into direct conflict over the results of the free school meal audit.

Daegu City and the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education recently conducted a large-scale joint audit covering the overall operation of free school meals provided at schools. However, due to disagreements over the audit results, they each announced different findings.

On the 15th, Lee Yoo-sil, Chairperson of the Audit Committee of Daegu City, held a press conference and announced that after a five-week audit starting from September 19, 1,827 issues were identified, 22 administrative actions were taken, and 2.4 billion KRW of misused budget would be recovered.

Chairperson Lee stated that the issues included 474 cases of improper management of food delivery vehicles, 24 cases of inappropriate contract methods, and 782 cases of improper private contracts.

She added that during the preparation of project plans, the methods of subsidy execution and the execution plans for food costs and operating expenses were omitted, and a plan to recover 2.4 billion KRW of unspent funds over two years, 2019 and 2020, is being prepared.

However, the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education reported that only 224 issues were found, and most of them were minor. They reacted that Daegu City had absurdly inflated the number of issues to over 1,800.

A Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education official said, “If one employee violates the same issue every day for 87 days, the Office of Education counts it as one case, but Daegu City counts it as 87 cases. We understand that even the Board of Audit treats such cases as one. We do not know why Daegu City is trying to increase the number of issues.”

Due to these differences in views, although the audit on the operation of school meals was conducted jointly, Daegu City and the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education separately announced their results, creating a rare spectacle.

Lee Yoo-sil, Chairperson of the Daegu City Audit Committee, explained, “The Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education finds the 1,800 issues burdensome and suggested only announcing the 200 administrative actions, but Daegu City believes that while announcing the administrative actions, it is only right to disclose the detailed number of issues to the citizens. That is why we made separate announcements.”

The Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education also confirmed minor issues such as failure to collect confirmation of restrictions when concluding private contracts, missing signatures of multiple inspectors on inspection logs, non-disclosure of the school meal information website, and failure to verify delivery vehicles of suppliers. For 20 Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education employees who received disciplinary notices from Daegu City, only warnings or cautions were issued.

The Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education clearly stated that the 2.4 billion KRW budget that Daegu City plans to recover is impossible to reclaim.

The Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education said, “Daegu City claims that the budget provided without changing the project plan is unjust and should be recovered, but the Office of Education’s opinion is that according to the free school meal agreement, support must be provided in case of budget shortages, so recovery is unfair,” strongly opposing Daegu City’s recovery action.

Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education Superintendent Kang Eun-hee said, “Since we completed free school meals later than anywhere else in the country, we will cooperate with Daegu City and district offices to supplement operational shortcomings and provide safer and higher-quality meals.”

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