ONLY P12 M MOOE LEFT IN COFFER

HOW much can the newly installed Fernandez administration in Dagupan City do and how far can it go with only P12 million to run the city until December?

This question is uppermost in many city hall observers and the new occupants after Mayor-elect Fernandez discovered that city under the administration of outgoing Mayor Benjamin Lim had been incurring deficits since 2010 but annual budgets were used to cover up the deficits of prior years in connivance with some department heads and city councilors in the old minority.

Fernandez made the startling discovery when she began sorting out the city’s financial standing which to date shows that 80% of the city’s annual budget for maintenance and operating expenses have already been spent by the outgoing Lim administration over a 5-month period.

Records finally submitted by the outgoing administration last week show that technically only some P12 million is left in the city coffer for its operations from July to December this year.

Lim, whose whereabouts and medical condition remain undisclosed by his family, was represented in the turnover ceremony last Monday at the city plaza by his city administrator Vladimir Mata.

Fernandez lamented that she has yet to see “the true picture” of the finances of the city as the documents turned over by Mata were incomplete and covered financial transactions up to March only.

In a meeting that followed, City Budget Officer Virgilio Tangco admitted to Fernandez that the Lim administration tried to plug the financial deficiencies by submitting a supplemental budget of P39 million to be sourced from the proceeds in the questioned sale of MC Adore property.

Fernandez said she suspects that this could be one of the reasons why the Lim administration sold the MC Adore property hastily at a bargain price of P119 million.

BALANCE

According to Tangco, the P12 million left in the coffer does not include the budget for personnel services, which remains intact and the total remaining balance in the city’s Maintenance Operating and Other Expenses (MOEE) for the next six months is P54 million.

De Guzman, however, pointed out that the P54 million remaining MOOE would be further reduced to some P12 million if the expenses in electric bills in the amount of P28 million, plus expected billings in water, telephone and gasoline are included.

This remaining amount constitutes only 20 percent of the entire MOOE, which was part of the approved P581 million budget for the city this 2013, explained Assistant City Budget Officer Luz De Guzman.

At the same time, City Health Officer Leonard Carbonell complained that his office will be immobilized for the next six months with only P175,000 left in its budget.

Carbonell, who was in the United States for a time, said that without his knowledge, P1 million was removed from his office’s P3.5 million budget for the year.

In the case of the City Social Welfare Office, only P48,000 out of P600,000 is left in the account itemized as “grants for the poor”.

At the same time, the honorarium provided in all departments is now good only up to June 30, said Fernandez in a talk to newsmen.

She explained that the regular financial subsidy of the city to the barangay tanods and barangay health workers for the next three months would be jeopardized owing to the situation.

City Auditor Virgilio Quinto will continue to study the financial standing of other departments but the trend appears similar, said Fernandez.

OVERTIME

In the same meeting, Fernandez put on hold the P1.4 million being claimed by some city government employees for overtime work they claimed to have rendered during the recent Bangus Festival covering the three month-period from March to May.

Quinto pointed out that overtime pay is in fact not authorized under Commission on Audit rules and regulations even as expressed doubt if the overtime work was indeed rendered because it would seem that the personnel “were no longer sleeping for the three month period”.

Records show that overtime pays were already collected from August to December 2012 and from January to April, 2013 in the amount of P6.7 million.

Tangco also admitted it was the employment of some 1,000 emergency workers and technical consultants that drained the resources of the city government.

There used to be only some 300 consultants and emergency workers in the city government but their number tripled a few months before the May elections.

Quinto has advised Fernandez to set June 30 as the cut off date for all claims and those filed after that will no longer be paid.

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