City Council approves P6.5B budget for 2016

CEBU, Philippines – In a 9-3 vote, the City Council passed a P6.5 billion budget for the city government next year, lower by P7 million than this year’s P13.4 billion.

Councilor Margarita Osmeña, chairperson of the council’s committee on budget and finance, said the committee put weight on five factors in reviewing the proposed budget.

These include the case filed against members of the City Council on the validity of the sale of SRP lots; the submitted summary of appropriation, allotment, and obligations by the City Budget Officer; the budget of expenditures and sources of funding; explanations given by the representative of each departments and offices during the budget hearings; and the documents submitted by the different offices and departments to this committee including the daily cash report as of November 18.

Increase

The council increased the amount for some items proposed by the executive department.

For example, the P250,000 under the incentive awards account was raised to P4.2 million to cover elementary and secondary graduates of school year 2015-2016. From P770 million, the financial assistance for senior citizens was raised to P807 million.

The council also increased to P50 million the proposed P35 million for burial assistance to accommodate obligation from the previous year and to P2 million the proposed P1.3 million budget for anti-discrimination initiatives. The budget for aid for persons with disabilities was also raised to P91 million from the proposed P65 million.

Osmeña’s committee recommended the budget for the construction of classrooms and fencing of schools be charged against the special education fund.

Lowered

While budget for some items were raised, the council reduced the proposed budget under the Capital Outlay except for the construction of the Cebu City Medical Center amounting to P300 million, considering that there is still a balance of P1.8 billion under the city’s Department of Engineering and Public Works.

Osmeña said the council had to consider the guidelines of the Commission on Elections next year, which includes infrastructure ban from March until May 2016.

The council has defunded the P30 million for the solo parents program next year and items under the aid to the city barangays such as barangay sponsored activities (P16 million), barangay sports for life program (P16 million), barangay disaster preparedness program (P15 million), barangay rice incentives (P10 million), barangay health program (P15 million), and barangay peace and order program (P8 million).

Osmeña said the committee has already defunded the accounts and programs that were not justified by the offi-ces or departments concerned.

The council also lowered to P135 million the proposed budget of P238 million for garbage collection and disposal and to P25 million the proposed budget of P150 million for asphalting of roads.

Zero

On what appears to be the most radical changes from the proposal, the council zeroed the budget of the Prevention Restoration Order Beautification Enhancement (PROBE) team, except for the budget for personal services. PROBE had a budget of P4.3 billion for this year.

For 2016, however, the council zeroed the allocation for the near hire program (call center training program), which had a proposed budget of P3 million; the self help projects, which had a proposed budget of P16 million; the asphalt batching plant, which had a budget of P2.8 million; the materials for the city’s 80 barangays, which had a proposed budget of P8 million; and the barangay road and drainage maintenance, which had a budget of P68 million.

The council has zeroed majority of the traveling and training expenses, except to that of the city’s Human Resource Development Office.

The other items zeroed were budget proposals for the construction of Newtown (Medium Rise building), renovation of City Hall, installation of barangay boundary markers, installation of barangay directional signages, Colon revitalization program, development of impounding area at SRP; master plan for SRP, downtown, traffic management, coastal area, and upland, among others. — /JMO (FREEMAN)