Wednesday, July 23, 2008 DBM tells Mandaue to implement budget
MANDAUE City Hall can implement its annual budget even without the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) declaring it as operational, an official of the department said.
DBM 7 Director Carmela Fernan said that as long as the budget for this year has been approved by the City Council, the City Government may start disbursing its funds for projects and services.
“Don’t tell me the City will stop its operations because DBM has not declared the budget operational. That is not how it works,” Fernan told Sun.Star Cebu after learning that Mandaue City officials are still waiting for DBM to declare the budget to be in accordance with the law.
“Once the annual budget is approved by the City Council, the City can start implementing it,” she said.
DBM has yet to review the City’s P668-million annual budget because it lacks 17 supporting documents.
Fernan further said that city officials may even start proposing or working on the passage of a supplemental budget, provided that the city treasurer can certify that funds are available.
‘Questionable’
But she cautioned city officials against disbursing funds for “questionable” items or disbursements that are not in accordance with the law, as this could be disallowed when they review the budget and officials may be ordered to refund the amount.
Fernan explained that the review of the annual budget by DBM is intended to check if the budget complies with the law.
Immediately after reviewing the budget, DBM is tasked to inform the local government unit about items that are not in accordance with the law.
Sun.Star Cebu sought Fernan’s opinion after Mayor Jonas Cortes’ P205-million supplemental budget got stalled at the City Council, with some opposition councilors saying that DBM has yet to declare their annual budget operational.
Lawyer Francisco Amit, the mayor’s consultant, shared Fernan’s opinion, pointing out that City Hall operations will stop and salaries of employees will be delayed if the City will wait for the DBM to declare the budget operational.
Paperwork
Amit blamed the council for the delay in the review because the latter submitted to DBM its own version of the budget without the mayor’s signature, instead of the one prepared by the executive department.
He said that the council is supposed to transmit the approved budget to DBM, including supporting documents like the executive department’s proposed budget.
So if the review of the budget is delayed, Amit said there is a problem with the transmission of documents by the council.
Mandaue City’s executive and legislative branches earlier blamed each other for the deficiencies in the annual budget.
Mandaue City Administrator Briccio Boholst, an ally of the mayor, blamed opposition Councilor Emilio Rosal and the rest of the council for submitting their own version of the budget, which lacks the mayor’s signature.
But Rosal criticized the executive department for blaming them for what he said was the executive officials’ “ineptness.”
The opposition councilor also said that since DBM still has not declared the city’s budget in accordance with the law, the council cannot approve any supplemental budget submitted to them by the mayor.
Cortes already submitted to the council the proposed P205-million first supplemental budget last month but as of this week, the council still has not tackled it. (OCP)
