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Talk about Hypnosis
By psychologist Gisela Bonilla, May 26, 6 p.m., Casa Ames, San Pedro, Barrio Roosevelt, 300 m south, 50 m east of Il Pomodoro, house #23. Info: 2224-3678, 2234-1810.

Masterkey in Concert
Gospel, presenting “Songs of Love,” May 26, 8 p.m., National Theater.

Gustavo Valle
“Mujer: Implícito deber,” photography, through June 3, Galería 1887, CENAC.

Emergency workers evacuated 84 people to temporary shelters in Costa Rica's northwest Nicoya Peninsula and dozens of homes flooded along central and northern Pacific coast as intense rains fell Monday night.

The National Emergency Commission (CNE) issued a yellow alert Tuesday for the entire central and northern Pacific regions due to rising seas along the coast.

The yellow alert is the second of the countries three alert levels.

Costa Rica's National Meteorological Institute (IMN) said conditions will continue through Tuesday and Wednesday. Waves will reach 6.5 meters in height and winds will blow at up to 37 kilometers per hour, according to the IMN.

The CNE classified these conditions as “very dangerous” for maritime activity and recommends that sailboats and boats shorter than seven meters keep off the ocean until the system passes.

The commission also recommended that anyone with boats buoyed in the open water search for a dock in a nearby marina to store the craft.

The CNE is sending food and supplies from San José to shelters along the Pacific coast. As of Tuesday morning, 84 people had been moved to temporary emergency shelters in the Nicoya Peninsula.

In the Pacific port town of Caldera, 40 homes were flooded on Monday night because of high tides. In Puntarenas, a port town on the Pacific, 63 homes reported floods.

The southern Pacific region remains under green alert, the first of the three levels and the normal alert level for the region. In Golfito, the southern Pacific port city, the CNE received reports of small landslides and “a few flooded homes.”

The Chinchilla administration has outlined its security priorities for its first 100 days, choosing to focus its efforts on 10 communities and 20 educational centers.

Officials of the Public security ministry will develop intervention protocols for the communities chosen and initiate the first steps of their determined agenda.

The areas – which were identified because they require “special attention” – include Guararí de Heredia, the eastern San José suburbs of San Pedro and San Juan de Dios de Desamparados, and the central San José districts of León XIII, La Uruca, El Carmen, Hospital, Merced y Catedral. Outside of the Central Valley, the Cieneguita neighborhood of the Atlantic port city of Limón and the central Pacific cantón of Aguirre (Quepos) were targeted for special attention.

“One of the first measures of this government is to initiate actions to improve public safety,” President Laura Chinchilla said in a statement, adding that one of her first initiatives is boosting the police force by 180 officers.

In July, an additional 125 officers will be tagged on to police operations in Quepos and Limón.

Chinchilla, a former security minister who campaigned on a promise of improving public safety, will also focus on publishing the operational regulations of the Law against Organized Crime, install a new platform for judicial intervention and create an informational platform to confront organized crime.

Even during an economic recovery, the Costa Rican government's fiscal deficit is growing.

In a report released Friday by the Finance Ministry, the government's deficit stands at over ₡ 292 billion ($556 million), more than double the ₡ 127 billion mark that prevailed through the first four months of 2009 – among the darkest months of last year's worldwide recession.

And the deficit is expected to keep expanding.

In his first press conference since being appointed finance minister, Fernando Herrero explained that the current deficit represents 1.6 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), and that he expects it to hover around 4.8 percent by the end of 2010. If his prediction comes true, the deficit by the end of 2010 will be ₡ 876 billion ($1.67 billion).

“The worldwide economic crisis enveloped Costa Rica at the end of 2008. The government responded by increasing public spending to compensate for the fall in external demand and internal private demand (for goods and services),” Herrero said. “It was a successful program from that perspective, in that it enabled Costa Rica to experience a smaller economic contraction than seen in other countries. To put our situation in context, remember that the average deficit for the developed countries (who are members of) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was around 9 percent of the GDP, much higher than ours.”

As alluded to by Herrero, government spending has increased. Spending in the first four months of 2010 exceeded ₡ 1.15 trillion ($3.19 billion), a 27 percent increase compared the same period in 2009, and the highest figure ever recorded at the start of a year. The balance sheet provided by the Finance Ministry indicates significant increases in salaries, debts and interest expenses.

But it appears that government revenues can't keep up.

During the first four months of the year, income tax collection is up almost 6 percent, bringing in ₡ 43 billion ($82 billion) more than during the same time frame in 2009. The increase in income tax revenue is attributed to the economic improvements thus far this year. Taxes on imports, sales and customs have all improved considerably. The government has collected over ₡ 859 billion ($1.63 billion) in 2010, though is still nearly ₡ 300 billion short of expenditures.

Understanding the broadening distance from a balance between expenditures and incomes, Herrero mentioned that the Finance Ministry would have to implement new measures to attempt to regulate government spending while increasing revenues.

“We've arrived at the conclusion that, in order to reduce fiscal deficit, our efforts should center on increasing income, while also creating administrative and legislative measures.”

Herrero explained that the ideas being considered to reduce the fiscal deficit would include improving the collection of uncollected taxes, which are estimated at over ₡ 7 billion, the registration of informal businesses and combating evasion.

Herrero also mentioned the idea considered by many as the most logical - and longest delayed - method to reduce the fiscal deficit: A tax reform.

For more on this story, see the May 28 th print or digital edition of The Tico Times.