"Illegal Expansion of School Swimming Pools Exposed"…Seoul Office of Education Conducts Audit on 41 Public Schools

Main Office and 11 Branch Offices Joint Audit
7 Cases Including Failure to Establish Usage Permission Plans
Recovered Usage Fees of 67.31 Million Won
Measures Taken Including Improvement of Usage Permission Manual

Amid issues of numerous illegal extensions and unauthorized occupations in school swimming pools at elementary, middle, and high schools in Seoul, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education conducted a special audit. Through this audit, dozens of cases such as the absence of usage permit plans and arbitrary construction of temporary buildings were uncovered.

On the 4th, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education announced the results of a special audit on 41 public elementary, middle, and high schools operating school swimming pools. This audit was conducted jointly by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and 11 education support offices from April 18 to September 5.

This article is unrelated. Yonhap News

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education stated, "The audit revealed improper cases including failure to establish usage permit plans for school swimming pools, collusion among bidders, failure to impose compensation fees on unauthorized occupants, arbitrary reduction of usage fees and unjust extension of usage permit periods, and under-collection of usage fees due to errors in permitted usage area."

Last year, it was revealed that a company operating a swimming pool at an elementary school in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, illegally extended the upper floor of the swimming pool and even installed an unauthorized golf course.

In particular, there were a total of seven cases where usage permit plans were not established and management of usage fee revenue was improper, resulting in disciplinary actions related to personnel status. Financial measures were also taken, such as recovering under-collected usage fees amounting to 67,316,000 KRW. Companies suspected of bid collusion and individuals who occupied school swimming pools without permission and did not pay compensation fees or had their usage fees arbitrarily reduced were subject to disciplinary actions.

Additionally, some places were found to have carried out construction without reflecting employment and industrial accident insurance premiums and industrial safety management costs during the swimming pool construction process, or were using arbitrarily constructed temporary buildings without reporting procedures to the supervisory authority.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education also announced measures to reduce the workload related to swimming pools, including ▲improving the usage permit manual to supplement the scope of usage fee adjustments and business registration ▲distributing an integrated program for calculating usage fees ▲preparing and distributing a checklist for school swimming pool operations ▲including 33 audit cases in the shared property duty textbook.