Not much in budget for city - Green - staff reduction, cut in services envisaged By Desiree Jodah Stabroek News March 29, 2000 City Hall will have to drastically reduce its staff and the services offered to citizens in order to curtail its $2.5 billion budget to $1.5 billion, because there was no real allocation in the recently presented national budget for the city. Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green said at a press conference yesterday afternoon at City Hall that the budget suggested that the city was being taken for granted. He said this is in light of the fact that the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) was expected to receive only about five percent of the $252 million allocated in the national budget for neighbourhood democratic councils and municipalities. This would represent about $16 million or less. This, along with the $241 million allocated for the payment of rates and taxes to the council and revenue collected, would not be enough to sustain the council's original budget of $2.5 billion, Green said. The mayor said the $241 million did not include the $142 million owed by the government in rates and taxes for this year. Deputy Mayor Robert Williams said that in order to reduce the budgeted sum by one billion, the M&CC would have to cut employment costs by $300 million. He said this would mean reducing staff by 30 to 40 per cent; cutting capital expenditure by $150 million; maintenance works by $60 million and vehicular equipment by $25 million. Williams said expenditure in other areas would also be reduced by $100 million. The deputy mayor explained that these cuts would result in services such as garbage collection and disposal being reduced from once a week to perhaps once a fortnight, or, according to Green, once a month. Green reiterated that the M&CC might also be forced to close the Municipal Day Care as well as the Maternal and Child Health centres. The mayor said the M&CC had asked for an extension from November 15 to March 30, to present its budget. However, he said, it did not have sufficient resources to present a proper budget. According to Green, efforts to have a meeting with President Bharrat Jagdeo proved futile. He said that a letter in response to a request to meet the President to discuss widening the council's revenue base, said the matter would have been brought to the attention of Mr Jagdeo who was out of the country, when he returned to office on March 21. He said the council had not heard anything since. The council's statutory meeting was adjourned on Monday, the day the budget was presented in the National Assembly to see what it held for the city. But Green said there was nothing substantial in the budget for the city and the M&CC was now faced with reviewing its original budget. Some harsh decisions would have to be made in the next 48 hours, he said. The mayor noted that the national budget presented additional expense for the council, since it would have to increase the salaries of city constables in keeping with an agreement which stated that whenever an increase in salary is given to the Guyana Defence Force or the Guyana Police Force, the same would have to be given to the constables. He said the M&CC would also be pressed by unions representing its employees for increases in salaries in keeping with the 26.6% allocated in the budget for government workers. Green, arguing for government's approval of new revenue earning measures, said the gulf between the city's revenue and expenditure was tremendous. He said it could only be met by increased rates, and the M&CC had promised that it would not increase them, or from new revenue sources. According to him, the new revenue sources recommended could provide the amount of money needed to take care of crucial expenditure. New sources of earning revenue recommended by City Hall include: a percentage of the environmental tax collected by government; the establishment of a container tax and a municipal lottery; a municipal parking arrangement and money from the registration and licensing of vehicles.