Mayor-elect Alfredo Benitez said he is making sure basic services are delivered efficiently in Bacolod City*Ronnie Baldonado photo
The Bacolod City government will find ways to augment its income with an expected cut in its 2023 National Tax Allotment, mayor-elect Alfredo “Albee” Benitez said on Saturday, June 25.
Bacolod City, like all other local government units in the country, will suffer from a 14.47 percent budget cut in 2023 because of the national government’s low tax collection in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city government’s P2,091,905,199 NTA this year will drop to P1,789,208,582 or by P302.6 million in 2023, the Department of Budget and Finance said.
Benitez said he has no plan to raise property tax. “I have not looked into it,” he said.
The first thing to do is to get organized to make sure that the city government is delivering basic services efficiently, he said.
“We are trying to put in more systems, to push for contactless transactions. Less human intervention, less human error,” he said.
Benitez said although the outgoing city administration has not turned over all the documents his transition team needs, “so far they have been very cooperative”.
Incoming city administrator Pacifico Maghari Jr. and city legal officer Romeo Carlos Ting Jr. are going to the various offices asking for the needed documents, he said.*