New budget approved without slice for Osmeña’s new office

New budget approved without slice for Osmeña’s new office. (CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)

If all goes well this Friday, employees of the Cebu City government will finally get their mid-year bonuses after the three-man Cebu City Council passed the city’s revised annual budget during a special session yesterday.

But while employees are likely to get the bonuses that they had been waiting for, Mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña, who assumes office on June 30, will have to find other ways to pay for renovations to an 8th floor office which he intends to occupy starting this Thursday.

The three-man council, all allied with Team Rama, disapproved a P2 million budget allocation for the renovation of Osmeña’s old office on the 8th floor of City Hall’s Executive Building which was converted into a VIP lounge at the time of Mayor Michael Rama.

“Our party found it an unnecessary expense considering that there is already an existing provision for the mayor’s office and there are more important expenditures that we should spend on,” said Councilor James Cuenco, head of the city’s Committee on Budget and Finance in an interview after the session adjourned.

Cuenco said that he and Councilors Philip Zafra and Richie Osmeña met on Monday night to discuss Acting Mayor Margot Osmeña’s proposal. They also sat down with Acting Vice Mayor Lea Japson in a caucus before the 2 p.m. special session started.

“And finally the four of us agreed to just pass the budget and reduce it to its minimum. Just to pass it once and for all,” he said though they would have wanted to further scrutinize the budget.

“We just decided to just take out some unnecessary expenditures. A more thorough review would take time,” Cuenco added.

“I’ll do it myself”

For his part, Mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña said he does not mind not getting any allocation for his office renovation.

“When Mike Rama spent P20 million to renovate his office, I only asked for P2 million. Never mind. I’ll do it myself (office renovation). It doesn’t even matter,” Osmeña said in an interview with reporters after taking his oath of office before Vice President-elect Leni Robredo late on Tuesday afternoon.

Osmeña, however, hinted that he may scrap the council’s approved budget altogether and run the city using a reenacted budget from 2015 instead.

“Maybe I won’t accept the (approved 2016) budget. I’m prepared to live with a reenacted budget even for next year,” he said.

Last June 15, Acting Cebu City Mayor Margot Osmeña submitted a P6.062 billion budget proposal for the city’s operational needs which was turned down by the existing council.

During another session on June 22, the council decided to again pursue the budget deliberations to ensure that Cebu City employees will be able to receive their mid-year bonuses.

In today’s special session, Councilors Cuenco, Osmeña and Zafra approved only 6.060 billion of Margot’s P6.062 billion budget request.

The P2 million slashed from the budget represents the cost of the renovation for the incoming mayor’s office.

Budget Expenditures

Of the approved budget, the biggest allocation was given to Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) at P3.6B, followed by Personal Services, P1.4B; subsidy to special account, P665.4M; capital outlay, P120.6M; while approximately P88 million will be used to pay for the mid-year bonuses of the city’s close to five thousand regular and casual employees.

More than half of the budget or P3.4 billion will be sourced from tax revenues, according to the new budget ordinance approved yesterday.

Just before the session ended, outgoing Councilor Richie Osmeña moved to pass a resolution for the release of the mid-year bonus this Friday.