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Fitial’s revised FY ’13 budget gives more to mayors’ offices
House Ways and Means Committee chair Ray Basa (Cov-Saipan) may pre-file today the fiscal year 2013 budget bill after making further reviews and discussions yesterday on the governor’s revised $114-million budget that Basa said gave increases of $50,000 to over $500,000 to mayors’ offices.
He said the governor gave Tinian an additional $50,000, while Rota was given over half a million. Saipan got some $100,000 more.
“There are other figures we are again reviewing to see where the $12 million in additional anticipated revenues will go. We have to iron out some things first before we could pre-file the budget bill. Our job is to reflect the additional $12 million in the budget bill,” Basa said.
At the same time, Basa expressed optimism over the administration’s discussion of possible restoration of 72 work hours biweekly for the rest of fiscal year 2013, up from the current 64 hours every two weeks. That’s still less than the normal 80 work hours.
Acting press secretary Teresa Kim said there’s not been any decision made by the administration about any change in the biweekly work hours of those covered by austerity Fridays.
Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) said he has yet to fully review the governor’s revised 2013 budget but it would be interesting to find out the purposes for such increases.
Manglona hopes the governor will not pursue his plan to set up a new office for a governor’s special representative to Rota, and funding for such office may have been included in the budget of the governor’s office instead of including it in the Rota mayor’s office budget. He said this might explain the big difference between the increased budget for Rota and Tinian mayors’ offices.
“We will not allow such a plan to have another political hire by the governor. There should not be any room in this budget for a political hire. Increases in budget should go to medical care and public safety,” Manglona told Saipan Tribune.
Tinian Mayor Ramon Dela Cruz and Tinian Legislative Delegation chair and Senate Vice President Jude Hofschneider (R-Tinian) separately said yesterday they are not aware of the purpose of such increases in the mayor’s office budget as they have yet to review the budget packet.
Under the concurrent resolution that both the House and Senate adopted within days of each other, the total identified budgetary resources for 2013 is $133.641 million. Of this amount, $114.320 million is available for appropriation.
