Cut in 2024 budget proposals expected

CEBU, Philippines — As the marathon budget hearing for 2024 is halfway through, some departments may expect their proposed budget to be cut.

This was the assessment of Cebu City Councilor Noel Wenceslao, the chairman of Committee on Budget and Finance.

In an interview yesterday, Nov 20, 2023, Wenceslao said they already received more than 50 percent of the budget proposals from the 36 departments and offices of Cebu City Hall.

The marathon budget hearing began last November 13,2023 starting from the overall P100 billion budget proposal of the Office of the Mayor.

Now that they have heard more than half of the proposals, Wenceslao said they will be studying the probability of reducing some of the proposed budget once they wrap up the hearings.

"Once nga mahuman na namo og budget hearing then that's the time that we can tell how much ang mahatag nato gyud," said Wenceslao, adding that the budget hearing marathon is expected to finish by the end of this week.

Since the beginning of the budget hearings, among those that were already heard and presented were the Local Finance Committee, City Treasurer's Office, City Planning and Development Office, Human Resource Department Office (HRDO), Internal Audit Services Office and City Administrator's office wherein increases of budget proposals from the year 2023 has been observed.

Among those who presented yesterday were Management Information Computer Services (MICS) and Division for the Welfare of the Urban Poor (DWUP).

Wenceslao said that MICS is among the offices that have notably increased in their proposed budget, which shows an approximate 100 percent hike from last year's budget. MICS has proposed a total budget of P409,092,960 soaring from P206,347,310 of their 2023 budget.

"So I told them, unsay ma sacrifice nila, anyway they can make a project phase by phase na unsay magamit nila for next year," said Wenceslao.

Apart from MICS, Wenceslao said they will be also advising other departments and offices to assess the priorities of their budget allocations to be able to reduce some of it.

"So para ma trim down namo ang budget. So by that time, makatan-aw nata pila atong magamit but based on the possible collection," said Wenceslao.

As for last year's collection, Wenceslao said the City Treasurer's Office has only accumulated approximately P7 to P8 billion, which is also the primary source of funds for the budget proposals.

For the year 2024, Wenceslao said they are hopeful to increase the target collection with implementation of the proposed revised ordinance of the Real Property Tax (RPT) and the full implementation of Sayaw sa Buwis.

Wenceslao said that it is important to hear all offices and departments before they could make any approval of the budgets to weigh the areas that need to be prioritized.

"Unsa say ma sacrifice nila so that later on we can already mold unsa juy sakto na budget nato for next year," said Wenceslao.

When the marathon budget proposal will wrap up this week, it will then be referred for committee reports, followed by its second reading until third reading.

"We have to finish this on or before December 31 (2023)," said Wenceslao. — (FREEMAN)