Dagupan City okays P357 Million budget
THE city council returned to work last Jan. 9 after a long Christmas vacation to finally approve this year’s budget in the amount of P357 million.
Councilor Michael Fernandez, chair of the city council’s finance and ways and means committees, admitted there was little delay in the approval of this year’s budget because the council had to give priority to the passage of the updated revenue code which was approved last Dec. 13 in order to generate additional P20 million for the city coffer.
City Administrator Rafael Baraan considered the budget realistic and is confident that it could avert another collection shortfall in the city.
The P357 current city budget is only P7 million higher than last year’s budget in the amount of P350 million.
In the consideration of this year’s budget, Baraan was among the officials of the city called by the city council to answer questions about the proposed outlay.
The others were City Treasurer Romelita Alcantara and Budget Officer Luz de Guzman.
Alcantara said as compared to last year’s collection target which was rather ambitious, this year’s budget has a very conservative estimate.
Last year’s shortfall in collection was pegged at P10 million from rentals of stalls in the Malimgas Public Market and about P12 million in the enforcement of the fishery laws.
For the city to meet its goal, collection target in the Malimgas market was pruned down to P30 million from P40 million last year and P9.2 million from fishery code enforcement from last year’s P14.5 million.
Alcantara said the city scored an over-collection of P8 million from the city’s Internal Revenue Allotment last year.
This helped plug what could have been a bigger collection shortfall from other revenue sources last year.
Both Baraan and Alcantara belied repeated assertion of Councilor Fernandez that the city incurred a budget deficit, saying this was only a collection shortfall.
They said the city is controlling and monitoring its expenditures from time to time in order to avoid being plunged into deficit.
Baraan also quickly denied that the city is delinquent in paying its bills with the Dagupan Electric Corporation.
“We don’t have any unpaid bills with the Decorp and the reported P24 million unpaid bills of the city is very sarcastic,” said Baraan.–AQL
But Baraan told the city council that the city has to pay the balance of P4 million with Decorp.
“We pay them (Decorp) as soon as the processing of its bills is completed,” Baraan said even as he blamed Decorp for its late billings. AQL
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