BAGUIO CITY – The City Budget Office and the city’s Local Finance Committee lauded the speedy and timely passage of the proposed PhP2.744 billion annual budget of the city government for this year.
City Budget Officer Leticia O. Clemente said that it was the first time in the history of the budget preparation that upon the instance of city officials, the executive budget was submitted to the local legislative body on September 21, 2023, a month earlier than what is required by law.
Further, she claimed that for the first time in the history of budget deliberations, the local legislative body authorized the city’s annual budget on November 11, 2023 way ahead of the usual approval done on the last week of December.
The city budget officer claimed that the speedy and timely approval of the city’s annual budget allowed the concerned office to issue the 2024 allotments to the different offices before the end of December 2023.
According to her, with the timely approval of the city’s annual budget, it is now their turn in the local finance committee to keep up with the time frame of implementation pursuant to their work plans.
Under the pertinent provisions of Republic Act (RA) 7160 or the Local Government Code of the Philippines, local chief executives are mandated to submit to the concerned local legislative bodies the proposed annual budgets of the local governments on or before October 16 for deliberations and approval.
Moreover, the concerned local legislative bodies are given 90 days to further deliberate and approve the proposed annual budgets of local governments once said proposals had not been acted upon during the previous year. Once the proposed executive budget will not be approved during the 90-day grace period of the following year, the local government will be operating on a re-enacted budget which means that the local government will be using the previous budget to be able to sustain the delivery of basic services to their respective constituents. By Dexter A. See
