SP OKs P.34 billion '07 city gov't budget

THE 9th Sangguniang Pan-lungsod of the City of Tagbilaran has approved during its regular session last Wednesday the city government's 2007 budget amounting to more than P349 million. Of the total budget, 51% is allocated to City Government Services and Operations while 30% is appropriated for Strategic Initiatives, Programs and Projects. The remaining tiny chunks are divided between City Council Governance Operations (7%), Aid to Component Barangay and National Offices (3%) Debt Servicing (5%) and Calamity Reserves (4%).

The appropriated amounts are available through three major sources of funds as identified by City Government Finance Committee. These are revenues (84%), which is projected to grow by 9.5% this year, borrowings (12%) and 2006 surplus (3%). The approval was unanimous, following a through review by each council member and a Budget Programming, Planning and Skills Building Workshop for the SP and City Budget Office.

The SP Committee on Appropriation and Accounts, composed of Vice Mayor Nuevas Tirol Montes, chairperson, and Councilors Jose Antonio Veloso, Leonides Borja, Danilo Bantugan, and Urbano Lagunay noted that the 2007 budget used Zero- Based Budgeting (ZBB), a technique that” reverses the working process of traditional budgeting.” ZBB makes no reference to the previous level of expenditure. In ZBB, every department function and all corresponding expenditures are reviewed comprehensively and approved rather than only increases, as what characterized traditional incremental budgeting. Thus, ZBB is indifferent to whether the total budget is increasing or decreasing.

Zero-Based Budgeting is the reason behind the long, tedious and even, at times, contentious budget process department and section heads went through for several months. The process involved not only appropriating amounts but also identifying programs and projects in relation to the overall vision of the city government, defined in the Constituency, Organization, Finance and Infrastructure Perspectives of the City Road Map for Excellence. Vice Mayor Montes pointed out the many advantages of ZBB such as easy detection on inflated budgets; pro-active, innovative and creative operational planning among managers; efficient resource allocation that is based on needs and benefits; shared responsibility- taking; and elimination of wastage and obsolete operations.

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