Senate looks at passing FY 2012 budget bill on Sept. 8

With less than a month to work on a budget bill that the House worked on for four months, the Senate said yesterday it’s going to pass on Sept. 8 a $102-million spending package that could be in the form of a substitute bill, mainly to give additional funding to education.

Acting governor Eloy S. Inos, at the same time, said the administration is now preparing an emergency declaration in the event that a budget is not passed and signed into law before the start of fiscal year 2012 on Oct. 1.

An emergency declaration from the governor is needed to be able to identify government employees who will be exempted from a shutdown, in the absence of a legislation defining “critical” service employee positions.

“The budget [process] is not difficult.It’s the political decision associated with the budget [that] is the tough part. We’re not the Legislature; they are,” said Inos, who also oversees government finances.

The Senate received the official transmission of the budget bill, House Bill 17-215, House Substitute 1, House Draft 5, yesterday afternoon.

The House passed the fiscal year 2012 budget bill on Wednesday night, barely a month before the start of the new fiscal year.

Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) and Fiscal Affairs Committee chair Jovita Taimanao (Ind-Rota) separately said that while the Senate is given a small window of opportunity to review the House-passed bill, they will act expeditiously to avoid another government shutdown.

Under the Constitution, the government will have to shut down if there’s no budget passed before the start of a new fiscal year. The shutdown will remain until a new budget is passed and enacted. Lawmakers also won’t be able to receive their salaries during the duration of the shutdown.

Manglona, Taimanao, and Sen. Ralph Torres (R-Saipan) met yesterday afternoon with Northern Marianas College president Dr. Sharon Hart and other NMC officials to discuss the college’s request to have a budget of at least $5.2 million to meet federal maintenance-of-efforts requirements.

The House budget bill gives NMC a $4,018,800 budget.

The senators said they will also meet with Public School System officials to go over their budget request. PSS said the House budget is short of $106,000 to meet the maintenance-of-effort requirement of the U.S. Department of Education.

Other defeated floor amendments that members of the House minority could also be resurrected by the nine-member Senate.

Because of the Senate’s anticipated amendments to the House budget bill, the House may reject the Senate version and a conference committee will be formed once again.

The conference committee will comprise Senate and House members who will work on a budget bill agreeable to both chambers. When that bill is done, it again has to be passed by the House and Senate before reaching the governor’s desk.

Last year, a budget deadlock between the House and Senate led to a government shutdown and unemployment among over 1,000 employees for days.

The acting governor said last year’s shutdown “is a difficult lesson.”

“Like I said, we’re gearing up for possible shutdown.Hopefully, we will have the House and the Senate agree on a budget bill that we will eventually sign into law,” Inos said.

House Ways and Means Committee chair Ray Basa (Cov-Saipan) said yesterday that the House has its reasons for introducing the budget bill only recently but he said the Senate already had an idea of what a 2012 budget bill will entail since April 1 when Gov. Benigno R. Fitial submitted his budget to the Legislature.