American Samoa budget becomes law

PAGO PAGO, American Samoa, (Samoa New/PIR)—After line item vetoing all of the Fono’s amendments to the fiscal year 2009 budget, Acting Governor Faoa Aitofele Sunia signed the document into law Wednesday evening, just before the start of the new fiscal year.

The Fono-approved budget totaled US$340.87 million after cutting US$224,000 from TOFR and US$136,000 from ASG’s US$1 million electricity budget with the total (US$360,000) re-allocated to eight agencies.

However, after Faoa exercised his line-item veto authority, the final budget was reduced by US$394,500 putting the final total FY 2009 budget at US$340.46 million.

The difference occurred because of what categories the Fono chose to put in the re-allocated funds.

For example, the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) was re-allocated US$100,000 by the Fono for equipment, but they placed the amount in the ‘personnel costs’ category. The agency had an allocation from the governor of US$27,500 in the personnel costs category under the Enterprise Fund to jump start it under its new jurisdiction – the Department of Public Safety.

When Faoa line-item vetoed the category, to remove the re-allocated US$100,000, he eliminated the full amount of US$127,500, leaving no money for personnel costs. The only funding for EMS now, is the US$797,500 ASG general subsidy for contractual services.

Other affected agencies, that lost all funding under a specific category during the line item veto is US$54,500 for Agriculture Department in its All Others category and US$52,500 for the Public Defender’s Office in its All Others category.

Other agencies that received extra money from the Fono and were line item vetoed by the acting governor with no effect to their original budget – are Department of Homeland Security, Office of Property Management, Department of Local Government, Election office and Airport Division.

In a September 30 letter to the Fono leadership, Faoa said the proposed FY 2009 budget, as submitted to the Fono for review, was the product of input from budget authorities and overall agency program requirements.

“This being the posture of the proposal, there is an inherent interest in protecting the details and the spirit of the bill as submitted,” he wrote. “While I understand the intent of altering funding amounts for specific line items in our budget, I must remind you that every single branch of the government, every semi-autonomous agency and every Executive Branch department deals, year in and year out, with these very pressures and budget constraints.”

He said these pressures are nothing new to any branch or department in government.

Copies of the acting governor’s letter and final budget were distributed to lawmakers yesterday and there was no official comments from the Fono leadership.

ASG sources told Samoa News yesterday that the governor and Faoa are not happy or pleased with department directors, who went to the Fono and asked for more money, “knowing very well that this is the final budget based on revenue projections and every department and agency has to live within those financial means.”