CEBU City Hall’s budget office will submit a P6.2-billion budget for the city government next year to the City Council for deliberation.
City Budget Officer Marietta Gumia said they are only waiting for the signatures of the department heads before they submit the budget for council deliberation.
The budget is mainly allocated for the city development projects and for the city’s disaster response and management plans, Gumia said.
She said the complete breakdown of the budget will be furnished to the council on October 16.
The 2018 proposed budget allocation is P1 billion lower than this year’s budget of P7.2 billion.
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña said he is confident that the city can meet its target budget this year even if it didn’t sell a three-hectare lot in the South Road Properties (SRP).
When sold, the lot can give the city P3 billion. But Osmeña said there is no need to rush the sale of the SRP lot to sustain the city’s expenses.
“We are going to sell the three hectares in SRP. But in the meantime, we will borrow against it,” Osmeña said.
Next year’s scaled-down budget is in keeping with the mayor’s “bare bones” budgeting approach in which the council passes supplementary budgets for additional projects within the year.