BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Like other local government units all over the country, highly-urbanized Bacolod City also faces a P302 million reduction in National Tax Allocation share, formerly known as Internal Revenue Allotment, in 2023, disclosed Mayor-elect Alfredo “Albee” Benitez.
Benitez however ruled out raising property taxes in order to cushion the impact on NTA reduction to the delivery of basic services.
We have not talked about that, the incoming Bacolod City mayor said, stressing he has not yet looked at it from that point of view.
“We will just have to find ways to augment sources of funds to cover for it,” Benitez said.
The provincial government of Negros Occidental also faces a reduction of P700M in NTA share, which Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson said may increase to more than P2 billion, if including the 31 local government units.
The first thing, according to Benitez, “is to get organized, and to make sure that the City Hall is delivering the basic services efficiently.”
“We’re trying to put in more systems, to push for contactless transactions. Less human intervention, less human error in our system,” he said.
Asked if he had felt resistance from some department heads and regular employees, Benitez said that some department heads already met him.
“So far so good,” he added.
As to the retention of job order employees identified with the past administration, Benitez said “if they are working, they have nothing to fear,” adding that they will also do an assessment.
The first to be done, the incoming mayor said, is to establish the needs, and not look for a position for certain people.
Benitez also said that the allocation of budget is based on number of job order employees needed by the City government.
“Otherwise, we will have an excess of people who cannot help and are unproductive for our city,” he stressed.*
