Members of the Compostela municipal council will hold a special session today to discuss the long-delayed P56 million budget proposed by Mayor Ritchie Wagas.

“It is up to them to approve or revise the budget as long as they act on it because the people of Compostela are waiting for the verdict,” he said.

“Whatever they decide to do is within their power and prerogative.”

He also denied accusations that he has hired 250 job order employees since he assumed office in July 2007.

Vice Mayor Joel Quiño and councilor Wilfredo Calo said on Monday that job order employees, who are paid P168 daily, increased from 54 under former mayor Antonio Danggoy's time to 250 under Wagas term.

Wagas clarified that the town has only 233 casual and regular employees and 90 job order employees.

“We have records to show and the numbers will not lie," Wagas said. "Ug nangigi sila (If they’re envious), well, it is a prerogative of the mayor to hire job order employees because it is the mayor who has the power to hire.”

The P56-million budget submitted by Wagas to the municipal council on Oct. 16, 2007 is the subject of debate between the executive and legislative department of the Compostela municipal hall.

Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia stepped into the dispute by calling Wagas and Quiño to a closed-door meeting on Tuesday.

Wagas said the governor asked them to refrain from granting media interviews on the matter while they try to “troubleshoot” the problem.

Legal counsel Danilo Almendras of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) 7 said that with the governor's intervention, there was no more need for his office to be part of the discussion of Compostela municipal officials.

He said that Garcia is in the best position to mediate the dispute since the town is within her jurisdiction. /Reporter Doris C. Bongcac and Correspondent Carine M. Asutilla