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MANDAUE CITY, Philippines - Talks between the Mandaue City Council and the Office of the Mayor seeking to convince councilors not to override the mayor’s veto on the council’s changes to the proposed 2008 budget did not go well, a City Hall official said Monday.
City Administrator Briccio Joseph Boholst said the failure of the talks would likely result in the opposition-dominated City Council insisting on the changes it made.
Certain items, like the city’s traffic management program, including the salaries of traffic enforcers and street cleaners might end up with “zero appropriation.”
“As far as we know, the budget for the traffic enforcement program is zero. They (councilors) said the amount was just transferred to another account in the budget, but the funds would now be difficult to access,” Boholst said.
Boholst said that without the funds, the traffic situation in barangays (villages) Banilad, Tipolo, Subangdaku and Cabancalan, would worsen.
Cortes, in his proposed 2008 budget, allocated P10 million for the salaries of traffic enforcers and another P10 million for the Clean and Green Program.
But the council changed the budget. The two items were combined and the allocation reduced. The combined item was then placed under “Other Programs and Projects.”
“It was reduced to accommodate the (hiring of) legislative assistants of the councilors. They prioritize their own staff above the traffic problem and our street sweepers...to the point of derailing the projects of the mayor,” Boholst said.
Councilor Emiliano Rosal, for his part, said the talks between the council and the mayor was not over.
Rosal, chairman of the council’s committee on appropriation, budget, and finance, said he would present a proposal that would benefit all parties. He refused to elaborate.
Boholst said that if the council overrides the mayor's veto on the budget changes, the salaries of traffic enforcers, who are mostly program employees, would be “put on hold,” since it would be considered a new item under the “Other Programs and Projects” category while it is reviewed by the Department of Budget Management.
The mayor’s staff and city councilors held a series of meetings last week to discuss the budget.
While the meeting “went well,” Boholst said there was “distrust on the part of the city council.”
“Sige ug usab-usab ilang huna-huna (They kept on changing their minds),” he said.
There were some councilors who were sympathetic with the mayor’s concerns, Boholst said.
“They understand the consequences of derailing programs of the mayor,” added the city administrator.
The mayor earlier assured the council that allocation for legislative staff would be placed in a supplemental budget after the 2008 annual budget is passed without changes to the allocation for the salaries of traffic enforcers and other items.
