THERE’s hope after all for Capitol employees to receive extra cash before Christmas.
Gov. Hilario Davide III has proposed a P15,000 yearend incentive for casual and regular employees this month.
The P20-million budget was submitted to the Provincial Board (PB) for approval in a special session, said Budget Officer Danilo Rodas yesterday.
If this is approved, the incentive will be received by 1,430 casual and regular Capitol employees.
For casual employees, only those working since September this year qualify to receive it.
Job-order workers, on the other hand, may receive an incentive “in kind.”
The budget officer said the governor decided to give incentives to Capitol employees after Cebu province was recognized this year as the third most competitive province in the country by the National Competitiveness Council (NCC).
This was a similar reason Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama cited when he asked the City Council to approve an across-the-board P30,000 incentive for city employees under a P127.1-million supplemental budget.
About 4,800 City Hall employees received the amount.
City Hall’s action inadvertently put pressure on the Capitol to give additional incentives for their personnel.
In December last year, the Davide administration gave P22,000 to 1,547 regular, co-terminus, and casual employees.
In 2013, Capitol employees received a P20,000 bonus in December.
During the tenure of then-governor Gwendolyn Garcia in 2012, the yearend bonus was P30,000.
In an earlier interview, Rodas said Capitol employees may no longer receive an “extra” Christmas bonus this year because there are no guarantees or orders for one yet.
He said all bonuses allowed by law had already been released earlier this year.
The 2015 Productivity Enhancement Incentive (PEI) of one-month’s salary was released in July, with 1,532 employees receiving their share of a P32-million allocation.
Capitol employees also received P15,000 each in August as the Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) bonus during the 446th founding anniversary of the province of Cebu.
Identified bonuses are part of a local government’s annual budget. Rodas said anything extra would need a supplemental budget.
Cash bonuses are usually timed at the end of the year by the local government. Traditionally, employees look forward to extra cash in December.
In one Capitol flag ceremony, Governor Davide announced that the province may no longer release a bonus in December.
During the lighting of the belen at the Capitol earlier this month Governor Davide disclosed that employees can really expect to receive incentives this month.
In a related development, Cebu Provincial Treasurer Emmanuel Guial said the province has collected 96 percent of its target revenue collection for this year.
Guial said they have collected P2.6 billion this year, slightly below the P2.7 billion they targeted.
“We are supposed to target P2.859 billion but then because of the sale of the Maria Luisa lots worth P144 million which needs Commission on Audit (COA) approval, we adjusted our target to P2.715 billion,” he said.
Guial said the target collection this year is bigger than last year’s while they are targeting P3.2 billion next year.