Members of the budget committee of the Cebu Provincial Board took notice of the drastic increase of the Provincial Administrator’s proposed 2015 appropriation during its first budget hearing yesterday.
The budget has increased to P135 million from P52 million this year.
But Provincial Administrator Mark Tolentino said two of the most significant items under the proposal are the separation incentive package and trainings for employees, which contributed to the increase.
The proposed budget for trainings next year is increased to P9.5 million from P5 million this year while the retirement incentive package has an allocation of P64 million for 2015.
Around 100 employees who are eligible for retirement are projected to avail of the separation incentives program next year.
Board Member Grecilda Sanchez-Zaballero, committee chairman, raised the need to justify the increase, especially the budget for trainings.
“We have a bugasan project with a budget of around P2.5 million while you are requesting a budget for trainings of almost P10 million,” she told Tolentino.
Tolentino was quick to point out that trainings are essential and should be constant.
He said his office intends to introduce more trainings next year including management and leadership, problem solving and decision making, technical writing and effective communication, on top of the usual team building activities and orientation seminars.
Tolentino emphasized that every organization needs to undertake trainings, and that the budget for this item was so meager in the past that employees under the previous administration have not undertaken trainings.
He added that the expenses are only at the beginning and will eventually taper off in the coming years.
At the end the budget hearing, Sanchez and the rest of the committee accepted Tolentino’s justification for the increase.
“We noted a lot in their proposals but I am happy that they were able to justify the budget,” Sachez-Saballero said in an interview after the budget hearing.
Other Capitol department heads also spent hours defending their proposed 2015 budget.
But Tolentino and Provincial Budget Officer Danilo Rodas only spent less than 30 minutes to defend the budget for the Office of the Governor.
Aside from queries regarding the province’s calamity fund, only a few questions were raised on the P587-million budget of the Governor’s Office which is P146.8 million higher than this year’s P440.7 million.
One of these was on the combined P110 million as subsidy for component towns and cities as well as barangays in the form of financial assistance for hard and soft projects.
According to Rodas, the amount is actually “very small” compared to what the previous administration’s budget for subsidy to local government units (LGUs).
The P3-billion budget proposal for next year is P404 million more than this year’s P2.59-billion budget.