GM&CC presents $5.6B 2026 budget

– city owed over $150 billion

Chairman of the Finance Committee, Lelon Saul, on Tuesday presented a whopping $5.6 billion budget for the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (MCC) at City Hall under the theme “Fortifying Local Foundations: Efficiency, Advocacy and Controlled Delivery amid Constraints.”
The budget sees a shortfall in expected revenue by some $1.2 billion.
Saul explained that the shortfall came about due to the budget not including projected income from the difference between the City’s Accounts receivables, which amounts to $7.6 billion and the City’s accounts payables with amounts of $6.7 billion. According to Saul the Council is working along with a consultant to sort out the City’s books.
“For the budget in terms of revenue, we have $4,411,895,804. You will see a deficit but in reality, because of our accounts receivables we have no deficit and therefore we give you a budget of $5,697,161,525. It’s a balanced budget, but for accounting purposes, it was presented like this as we are still working on our accounts,” Saul noted.
Saul also noted that the City is owed approximately $150 billion in rates and taxes, of which $42 billion is owed for residential taxes from 2889 properties across the City.
The lion’s share of the budget has been allocated to the Engineer’s Department which has been allotted $1.6 billion, followed by the Solid Waste Department which is projected to receive $1.268 billion.
Of the remaining allocations the town clerk office has been allocated $670,447,000, the City Constabulary $603,411,000, another $524,579,000 goes to Human Resource, the City Treasurer is set to get $428,472,000, Public health $270,168,000.
In terms of revenue generation, the Council is projecting to receive approximately $3 billion in the City Treasury from the rates paid, the Solid Waste Department is expected to receive approximately $737 million, while the Council is also anticipating to earn $109 million through the Engineer’s Department and $16 million through the Public Health Department.
However, Saul acknowledged that even as the City projects revenue for 2026, it failed to meet revenue targets in 2025.
According to Saul in 2025 while the City was projected to receive $2.6 billion from property taxes the actual collection amounted to just $1.1 billion, a short fall of nearly 58 per cent. Overall projected revenue was $3.8 billion, while the actual revenue for 2025 turned out to be $1.9 billion.
According to Saul the City will be initiating legal action against some of the delinquent property owners.