Sunday, December 16, 2007 Cebu City budget for 2008 higher by P167M for salaries By Rene H. Martel Sun.Staff Reporter
THE Cebu City Council approved Friday the 2008 annual budget of P2.51 billion without cuts, after a series of budget hearings the city legislators had with the executive department and department heads.
Of the amount, P2.075 billion was allocated for the general fund and P432.644 million for the special accounts.
Although the allocation followed Mayor Tomas Osmeña’s “skin-and-bones budget” by only including the basic expenditures, the total amount is P167 million more than the 2007 budget.
The committee on budget and finance headed by City Councilor Jose Daluz III said the additional amount was for the mandatory salary increase of government employees.
The biggest allocation for 2008 is for general public services at P846.348 million, or 38.39 percent of the budget, which is still within the 45 percent limitation for personnel services appropriations mandated by the Local Government Code.
Compromising 20 percent of the budget, the second biggest allocation is debt servicing with P54 million, followed by P249.196 million for health, nutrition and population control, which is 11.3 percent of the total budget.
The mayor adopted the skin-and bones system to avoid having department heads insert items into their respective budgets.
Additional expenditures are addressed through supplemental budgets.
SB 6
In the same session last Friday, the City Council approved a P27.046-million allocation for the supplemental budget (SB) 6, which includes a P7.127-million budget for the local development fund (LDF).
SB 6 includes P16.829 million for the general funds proper and covers expenses for aid to barangays (P6 million), mayors (P4.832 million), and City Health Department field services (P2.616 million), among others.
Aside from the P432.64-million allocation for special accounts, the 2008 budget includes a P303.413 million general fund proper appropriation as subsidy to the special accounts for the City Traffic Management (Citom), City Resource Management and Development Center (Cremdec), hospital operations, and the LDF.
The council, however, said income derived from operations of the offices given the subsidy, “after deducting costs and other related expenditures for the maintenance thereof at the end of calendar year 2007, shall be applied for the return of said subsidies.”
According to a comparative table that the executive department presented, a decrease was noted in the allocations for economic services (17.9 percent), the LDF (6.55 percent) and general public services (2.42 percent).
Based on a table presented, the allocations for those four sectors have been dropping in the past three years.
Debt servicing has also decreased from P576.3 million in 2006 to P581.3 million this year, and P504.9 million for next year.
But since the City’s foreign debt is in yen, the P504.9 million could grow depending on the exchange rate by the time the City is scheduled to pay.
P87M calamity fund
The five percent allocation for the calamity fund increased to P87.3 million from P78.9 million last year.
In approving the budget ordinance, the city council also agreed that “defund” all vacant positions and that appointments will be filled up and appropriated through fund augmentations.
It was also agreed to pool all supplies of the different offices and have General Service Office Chief Ester Cubero administer over them
The supplies are entrusted to Cubero “except for office supplies appropriated under the offices with special accounts on consonance with the annual procurement plans submitted by the different offices.”
