By Dominic B. dela Cruz
Staff reporter
Batac City—The city government here came up with a PHP508 million proposed budget for 2018.
The 2018 budget proposal is at least PHP34 million more than this year’s PHP474 million annual budget.
Batac mayor Albert D. Chua personally made the announcement after they collated all budget proposals from all the city government’s concerned offices.
Mr. Chua explained that the proposed budget is based on the estimated income for next year. He added that the budgetary increase is due mainly to the city’s increased revenues as well as its internal revenue allotment (IRA) share.
The mayor also disclosed that he and his staff worked closely with the local finance committee to study the budget proposals.
In their deliberation, Mr. Chua said all department heads presented and then justified their respective budget proposals.
Mr. Chua, however, revealed that the budget proposal total did not include the city’s RA 7171 share, or the tobacco excise tax share. He stressed that they will use a supplemental budget for the said tax share after its release.
The prescribed deadline for the budget submission to the Sangguniang Panlungsod is October 16.
Major projects
Meanwhile, Mr. Chua identified major projects for next year. He clarified that these projects are aside from the city’s 20 percent development fund.
Mr. Chua said that priorities are farm-to-market roads, upgrading of information technology at the city hall and barangays, improvement of health stations and barangay centers, CCTV installation, improvement of the public market and improvement of the city agriculture nursery.
He said that the city government also allocated amounts for the garbage site, recovery center, slaughterhouse, government center, city hall annex and multi-purpose halls.
The list also includes the re-engineering and beautification of the city plaza and economic tourist destinations.
In addition to this, the city government will continue to provide scholarship to deserving students.