Budget talks stalled to wait for AG opinion

Fiscal year 2016 budget talks lost a day yesterday as lawmakers await an opinion from the CNMI Office of the Attorney General on the legality of Senate provisions that seek to use funds earmarked for the Marianas Visitors Authority for other purposes.

After a bicameral committee meeting on Tuesday to resolve differences in the two competing budget bills, the House of Representatives sent a letter requesting Attorney General Edward Manibusan for a formal opinion on Senate proposals that the House has called unconstitutional.

It appears the onus is on the AG’s office to break the House and Senate’s impasse over where they are allowed to redistribute earmarked funds set aside for MVA. This “re-appropriation” amounts to about $2.5 million.

The AG does not have to answer with a formal opinion, though, and could avoid diving into a political quagmire by refraining.

The budget conference chairman for the House of Representatives, Rep. Antonio Sablan (Ind-Saipan), says, though, that he is sure Manibusan understands the “urgency and importance” of their request.

Lawmakers have about three weeks to resolve their budget differences and settle on a budget for Gov. Eloy S. Inos’ approval before the fiscal year ends at the end of the month.

“…I am sure he would find the time to respond at the earliest time to ensure that the possibility of a government shutdown does not become a reality,” Sablan told Saipan Tribune.

“That’s the last thing we need right now,” he added.

In their letter, the House posed this question to the AG: “Under applicable CNMI law, can an appropriations act legally appropriate funds via ‘notwithstanding clause’ or other legal mechanism when said funds are legally earmarked to an outside sources such as [the Marianas Visitors Authority and Cancer Fund] and when said funds were not identified by the governor’s submission or either legislative bodies’ concurrent resolutions as available for appropriation?”

Senators believe it’s within their legislative authority to invoke a “notwithstanding clause” in the budget to move funds outside the “subject of appropriations” set by Inos for equipment and utilities for the Division of Customs and local hospital.

Both the House and Senate have adopted a budget sum of $145,829,375, after the deductions of earmarked funds.

The House tells Manibusan that the Senate’s re-appropriated funds are not “subject to appropriation” for two reasons. First, the funds are not identified and adopted under CNMI law as funds subject to appropriations within the $145 million set by Inos and adopted by the House and the Senate.

Budget law and the CNMI Constitution “limits appropriations to ceilings established by a joint resolution,” the House writes.

The Senate asserts that the “notwithstanding clause” will be legally sufficient to appropriate the earmarks because they are “legislative in nature,” the House writes, and as such, the Senate believes it can freely amend the earmarks with a budget bill.

But the House further cites the NMI Constitution, which says the “appropriation bills shall be limited to the subject of appropriations.”

The House says the Senate’s moving around of MVA funds are outside this subject of appropriations.

According to the CNMI budget law, the Legislature cannot “consider any bill making appropriations in excess of the resources identified in the House concurrent resolution until the resolution is supplemented or revised to exceed or reflect such a level by the Legislature.”

The Senate adopted the House’s resolution last Friday, essentially adopting Inos’ $145-million figure after deducting earmarking. The House believes the use of the MVA funds adds to this $145-million ceiling.

“The Senate cannot unilaterally exceed the amount set forth in the concurrent resolution,” the House writes.

The House believes that any amendments to earmarks should be made in a standalone bill—one separate from an appropriations measure.