San Pedro Town Council Financial Update

When Mayor Wally Nunez took over at the San Pedro Town Council earlier this year, it wasn’t without controversy. The accounts were dried up and the financial state of council was grim, with debts in the hundreds of thousands. Some employees were terminated, but as the mayor’s strategic plan took shape, the revenue stream started pouring in. Mayor Nunez says that they’ve had to get innovative because the COVID-19 pandemic had shuttered businesses, but they are gradually rebuilding the council accounts.

Wally Nunez

Wally Nunez, Mayor, San Pedro Town

“We encountered a council that was fairly broke. We only had for like one payroll more when we came in and we were in debt. Actually we are still in debt, but on the banks we had two overdrafts which were roughly around seven hundred thousand dollars, which we cleared in the first three months. If we didn’t have all these bills, we could have done so much more for this island. I put myself and I think, what were they doing before because this island should be in a different rank with the amount of tourism, with the amount of income that is generated here, we could be in a different level. Just coming into the council and noticing that we have so many bills and so many things that we have to pay, it is very unfair, but we decided that we will work for the people. We had to find innovative ways how to bring everything online. We ventured into online payments and getting everything back, steadily going into the right direction. As you know the council has a newer system that we are on because we want to show the people that we are transparent, we are accountable. Even the bridge fees, we are going to be able to sow the people how the bridge fees are being used, how much is being collected. So it’s going to be invested back to the people.”