ANDA – The mayor’s office and the sangguniang bayan in this little coastal town in the west are at loggerheads over the town legislators move for a budget increase for their office that the mayor however found “outrageous, unconscionable and a criminal waste of people’s money.”

The sangguniang bayan, responding in kind to the mayor’s opposition, had frozen action on the municipal budget for 2008, forcing the municipal administration to operate on a re-enacted budget.

“They’re asking too much,” Mayor Nestor Pulido bemoaned of the budget increase being asked by the SB “across-the-board” that was, according to him “more than 200 percent increase over the legislative body’s budget last year.”

The sanggunian headed by Vice Mayor Napoleon Celeste wanted to legislate P8.7 million, or one-fourth of the proposed total annual budget, representing, salaries, allowances and maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE).

On top of this, some P1.2 million was also sought by the town aldermenfor executive service under the Office of the Vice Mayor.

The mayor pointed out that the treasury office could only produce a yearly collection of more than P6 million from local sources

The rest comes from the internal revenue allotment (IRA), he said, adding however that the IRA fund which is released quarterly, has been programmed for priority projects designed to spur economic growth and development.

Pulido, a former student activist, called as “outrageous” the municipal council’s request for P400,000 for mobile phones, travel expense for P350,000, another 350,000 for training and “confidential expense of P100,000.

Last year, according to Pulido, the travel expense item of the vice mayor and the councilors was P50,000 while training expense was pegged at P150,000.

The mayor also pointed out that the SB sought P300,000 for advertising expense. He cited a payment made by the sanggunian of P200,000 for only a two-page advertisement in a local newspaper which, he said, was too much, considering that he knows the advertising rate per page of local weeklies to be much, much lower