By The Star Staff
The concern of mayors regarding the lack of a secure budget to continue their operations remains latent, and this time it was the municipal executive of Naranjito who said the money his town is using to operate this fiscal year is from a recovery fund item.
“Construction criteria that come in at the moment, the programs, the FEMA recovery projects, well, that has given us relief, temporary oxygen and there, well, one continues working day by day because when you stop receiving a fund that at a given moment was recurring, not having it you have to depend on another source,” Naranjito Mayor Orlando Ortiz Chevres said in a radio interview.
“We can survive this year, the fiscal year [which began July 1], but we are going to survive it thanks to the recovery funds,” he added. “We already have a series of estimates with projects that are already [in the bidding process], and we already know how much that is going to generate for us in construction taxes, and with that we can sustain ourselves until the fiscal year is completed.”
The mayor’s statements came after statements were made by his counterpart in Loíza, Julia Nazario Fuentes, regarding the fiscal situation in her town with the elimination of the Equalization Fund. She even claimed to have cried with Ortiz Chevres.
The situation is such that the Naranjito mayor stated that if he has to cut services, he must decide between assistance to the elderly and the recycling program, to give an example.
“If I have to decide, for example, between maintaining the recycling program and maintaining the direct auxiliary services program, caring for our elderly, our old people, giving them breakfast and lunch, well, you know, the priority is going to lean toward caring for the elderly and then little by little eliminating programs,” Ortiz Chevres said.
The repeal of the Equalization Fund, along with the obligation imposed upon municipalities to pay for retirement and pensions, is forcing most towns on the island into insolvency.
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