COA: Metro Cebu WD gives employees excessive Special Leave Privileges

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IF you are a government worker who wants more time to relax and enjoy special time with your family, the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) might be the perfect employer for you.

According to the Commission on Audit, regular employees of the MCWD have been enjoying more than double the maximum number of days allowed under the rules for special paid leaves from work since 2017.

The SLP may be availed of over and above an employee’s entitlements to vacation, sick, and maternity/paternity leaves. It is intended to enable a government worker to celebrate “personal milestones and/or attend to filial and domestic responsibilities.”

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While the rules of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) do not permit Special Leave Privileges (SLP) of more than three days each year, personnel of the MCWD have been enjoying five extra days each year on top of what they were supposed to get.

“Verification from the Human Resources Information System showed that the Water District granted a total of eight days SLP per year to all regular employees. Five of which is for emergency and three is for SLP, that is: one for birthday leave, one for honeymoon/anniversary and one for graduation/enrollment,” the audit team said.

The extra five days of SLP was stipulated in the MCWD’s Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) with its employees and management has been invoking the same agreement in contesting the audit finding.

However, the COA pointed out that the Personnel Relations Office of the Civil Service Commission (CSC-PRO) has stated that the emergency leave/SLP “cannot be subjected to negotiation.”

“Under the existing civil service rules, only three days (of) special leave is allowed every year. The employee can avail of one type of leave for three days in a given year. The CSC-PRO points out the provisions in the agreement which are non-negotiable, hence unenforceable, despite the registration of the agreement,” auditors said.

The audit team added that the questioned practice of granting excessive SLP had been brought to the attention of the MCWD management as far back as 2017 but its recommendations appear to have been ignored.

In its reply, the MCWD said the MEU-MCWD Management Consultative Committee is about to start the CNA negotiation for the period 2025-2027 and the subject of the excess SLP will be included in the discussions.

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