House committee offers revised FY ’09 budget

The chairman of the House Ways and Means committee has introduced a new fiscal year 2009 budget bill that appropriates $156.76 million in resources—nearly $9 million less than the original Legislature-approved budget vetoed by the governor.

Rep. Ray Yumul introduced the proposed budget, which includes $148.1 million of projected government revenue, augmented with $5.17 million in Compact Impact funds and $3.5 million of “unencumbered” money taken from numerous accounts outside the general fund.

A separate $3 million is proposed for the Department of Public Lands, whose revenue is constitutionally reserved for the agency’s administrative costs and for investment by the Marianas Public Land Trust, and cannot be used for central government operations.

Gov. Benigno Fitial vetoed the Legislature’s earlier approved budget of $165.4 million on Dec. 24, 2008, citing an $8 million decrease in projected revenue. The government has now gone without a fiscal year 2009 budget for 106 days since the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

Excluding DPL, the new budget provides for 4,019 full-time government employees. The personnel cap represents a payroll of $106.37 million, a decrease of $5.83 million from the Legislature’s earlier approved budget. Under the new proposal, the remainder will go to non-personnel, $41.43 million, and utilities, $8.95 million. Previously, the budget allotted $43.7 million and $9.5 million for non-personnel and utilities, respectively.

The bill sets the employer pension contribution rate at 11 percent of the payroll, much lower than the 37.4 percent recommended by the NMI Retirement Fund’s actuarial consultant.

Fitial and Finance Secretary Eloy Inos had been urging the Legislature to reduce the Retirement Fund contributions.

The bill freezes salaries and new hires for government employees, except for those in critical agencies such as heath, education and public safety. Annual compensation for department heads would be capped at $45,000.

Employee benefits, such as a housing allowance, totaling $1.55 million would be allotted to the Department of Public Health’s Secretary.

Under the budget bill, CNMI government agencies will be prohibited from using their appropriations to sue another local agency. Government agencies would be assessed a 1 percent fee for the Office of the Public Auditor. However, the Public School System’s OPA fee would be used exclusively for the procurement of textbooks.

The now-defunct Resident Representative’s Office would receive $305,984 to cover the costs incurred from Oct. 1 to its closure on Jan. 3.

The appropriation bill allows those employees of the CNMI Division of Immigration who will be terminated because of the federal takeover of local immigration the option to withdraw his or her accruals from the benefit plan.

The Department of Labor’s Secretary is required under the appropriations bill to submit a report to the Legislature by May 1 that would, among other things, present the number of legal and illegal foreign workers present during the last two years, and the number of residents enrolled and successfully placed into jobs through Employment Services.

The House of Representatives is expected to begin debating the budget bill during a session this afternoon. Yesterday, Senate President Pete Reyes said once the House of Representatives passes the budget he would quickly convene the Senate to discuss the bill.