OSAKA -- Faced with critical financial difficulties, Osaka Prefecture will request the central government to have the city of Osaka share the burden for salaries of public elementary and junior high school teachers, it was learned Tuesday.
The prefecture recently submitted a report asking the government to change the current salary payment system in cities where prefectures pay for teachers and staff while rights to appoint personnel rest with the cities.
It is also calling on nine other prefectures that also have these special cities, which have populations over 1 million, to jointly set up a study group to further debate the issue.
The city of Osaka is opposed to the proposal, saying there is no plan to explain how it is to finance such extra costs. But Osaka Gov. "Knock" Yokoyama has questioned the present system, where the prefecture pays the money while having no say in personnel matters.
"Cities up to (the scale of) satellite cities should pay (such expenses) themselves," he said.
According to the prefecture, personnel costs shared by the central government and the prefecture at public schools in Osaka Prefecture reached about 495 billion yen in fiscal 1997.
The prefecture paid 88 billion yen out of the total, and about 25 percent of this amount, or 22 billion yen, is estimated to have gone to payments for the city.