City approves P85.8M for 1st SB

Thursday, February 23, 2012

IN JUST one day, the Cebu City Council heard and passed the first supplemental budget of the year worth P85.8 million, assuring City Hall employees that they will be receiving their anniversary bonus within the month.

City Treasurer Ofelia Oliva encouraged department heads to submit the payrolls of their employees so that the City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) can immediately process the P10,000 anniversary bonus, P7,000 of which was carried in the supplemental budget (SB), while the remaining P3,000 will be taken from the annual budget.

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Oliva, however, said there is one important requirement that every employee has to comply.

“We will immediately process payrolls, but I will require the presentation of the community tax certificate for every employee.”

For Vice Mayor Joy Augustus Young, he doesn’t want the bonus to be prioritized because there are still job order (JO) personnel that have not been paid since December.

Councilor Ronald Cuenco made a corollary motion for the bonus to be released in cash, just in case the automated teller machine cards of employees are already with the loan sharks.

Councilor Augustus Pe Jr. asked for Cuenco to include in his motion the prioritization of the bonus so that it can be released before the month ends.

Cebu City will be celebrating its 75th Charter Day tomorrow.

“Let’s not ask them to prioritize this (bonus) because there are job order personnel that have not been paid since December. I cry every time I receive text messages from JOs and I receive them daily,” said Young who also showed reporters some of the text messages he received, mostly from the 170 JOs of the local school board.

The same problem clouds JOs of other departments.

Councilor Rodrigo Abellanosa solved the problem by saying that the bonus should be prioritized and released after the JOs salaries have been released.

The SB1 was passed through a special session yesterday afternoon. At noon, the Council conducted a budget hearing on the SB that carried the P32 million bonus of City Hall employees.

“We will expedite this because of the bonus,” said Councilor Margarita Osmeña, chairperson of the Committee on Budget and Finance.

However, the Council still called the members of the local finance committee and department heads with budgetary items on the SB.

Most of the items are payable.

Among the biggest items is payment for the 2010 barangay elections worth P9.9 million.

City Administrator Jose Marie Poblete explained that the amount covers honorarium and food for those who served in the barangay elections.

Poblete also had to answer why P25,000 a day was spent for food and coffee for hundreds of employees, particularly from the CTO and Management Information and Computer System, who served in the 20-day renewal of business permits at the Elizabeth Mall.

The total budget was P500,000.

Councilors Pe Jr. and Noel Wenceslao advised Poblete to make a study on the expenses for the one-stop shop in a mall compared to what the City gains.

Pe believes that the best move of the City Government is to allow online processing of business permits.

State prosecutors, headed by Regional State Prosecutor Fernando Gubalane, applauded the Council when it approved their P1.134 million incentive allowance.