Bacolod City Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez is now eyeing a P3.6 billion annual budget for 2024.
Benitez said Monday, September 25, that they already finished the budget deliberation with all the department heads last week.
"The way we approach the 2024 budget, we started from the bottom. We removed all the non-recurring, expenses that are not salaries related, among others,” he said.
He added that all the departments and divisions started presenting their proposed budgets, which they had to defend.
The mayor noted that if the department heads failed to defend their proposed budget, they had to move on to the next one.
This year, Bacolod City has a total of P3.250 billion in its annual budget, the same as in 2022.
“Considering that our share from the national government or the national allotment (NTA), formerly known as Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), was reduced by P300 million, it was covered by our initiatives in the local revenues, and for 2024, we have P3.6 billion proposed budget,” Benitez said.
He said they will finalize the proposed budget and send it to the City Council by the first week of October for approval.
He added that social services will get the largest share of the budget, as well as the health department.
The mayor disclosed that the 2024 proposed budget will not affect the hiring of the job order workers at the Bacolod City Government Center (BCGC).
Moreover, Mary Jane Ramos, head of the City Planning and Development Office (CPDO), said the deliberation of the proposed budget also discussed all the prioritization projects of the administration of the mayor.*