MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/30 Dec) – The city council approved in a special session on December 17 the general fund budget of the city government at P596.4 million, with the budgets for city health and agriculture offices getting substantial amounts.
City councilors held a closed-door discussion before they approved the budget.
Councilor Roland Deticio told MindaNews the budget was approved as proposed, with no adjustments.
The City General Services Offices got a P45.9-million budget. The City Mayor’s Office is getting P37 million. The City Health Office budget was approved for P35.4 million. Budget for City Agriculture’s Office is at P24.3 million.
The Sangguniang Panlungsod gets P28.6 million for personal services and P6.3 million for maintenance and other operating expenses. The Vice Mayor’s Office gets P9 million.
One of the biggest chunks of the 2011 budget, the first under the administration of Mayor Ignacio W. Zubiri, is the “special provision allocation” at P99.6 million.
The allocation includes 17 items such as “support to administrative services.” Support to administrative services includes 31 sub-items, the biggest includes a P19-million provision for “lump sum appropriation for wages of casual employees,” “grants, aids, and subsidies for 46 barangays” at P6 million; and “water and power illumination” at P6 million.
The city government allocated under the support to administrative services P1.32 million for “security services,” a budget slightly higher that it’s P1 million allocation for “city indigent health program.”
The City Environment and Natural Resources Office, a new office created under the city reorganization program, gets P12.9 million.
Out of the P596 million annual general fund budget, 54.85 percent or P327.1 million is accounted under “office expenditures.”
The rest are accounted as statutory and contractual obligations and budgetary reserves, including the 20-percent development fund at P110 million, the 5-percent budgetary reserve for calamities (P29.8 million) and 5-percent reserve for Gender issues (P29.8 million).
In his explanatory note in the copy of the ordinance obtained by MindaNews, Councilor Bobby T. Casanova said the councilors held a consultative and executive meeting on December 16, a day before they met as a committee as a whole, on December 17. (Walter I. Balane / MindaNews)