Decision-Making and Budgeting Process of the City Arts and Culture Office of Calbayog City: A Case Study

Abstract

The City Arts and Culture Office is a department under the Calbayog City Mayor’s Office. CACO does projects to create awareness for the Calbayognons of their Calbayognon culture. Deciding for CACO’s major projects and its process for budgeting has a lot to say as to where or what direction an organization is heading and this should be in line with the vision-mission, goals and objectives created by the organization. As to the process of budgeting, CACO must follow the Local Government Budgeting Manual (LGBM) because it is mandated being an organization under the Local Government Unit. Following the LGBM will show transparency and ensure that the money coming from the taxes of the Calbayognons are being put into good use. This study was made because I’ve been wondering myself how an organization under the Mayor’s Office does its budgeting and how it decides on the projects to implement. With good budgeting even if the budget is small, is not a problem especially if the money is being placed in a night project. I also feel that as a Calbayognon, The people of Calbayog need to know who does the budgeting and how they do it since as mentioned, most of the projects of CACO are funded by the Local Government Unit. The information was gathered by going personally to the office of the City Arts and Culture Office in Calbayog City to do a personal interview with the Artistic Director. The available documentation also helped that came from the organization like the copies of the budgets of the major projects. Electronic mails also were used to communicate to the Artistic Director to ask him added information to complete the study and help understand the organization more as the thesis progressed. Consulting the books in management to see what are the steps in deciding for projects and process of budgeting to further help the organization or to see if it just needs some improvements. By the information gathered and with the discrepancies were seen, with regard to deciding the major projects, there are things neglected by CACO that are important. With the budgeting process, there are also small details and other steps needed that were not done but if given attention, it will make a lot of difference for the organization. With the things I have discovered, this is an interesting piece to read on in order to see for yourselves the details, the figures and the information, that there are really things lacking or there is a need for improvement with the way CACO is doing their decision-making on projects and the budgeting process.