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House panel to prioritize balancing budget
The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee is looking to work with the administration in making sure all CNMI agencies, departments, and other instrumentalities would get a fair share of the fiscal year 2020 budget, which is expected to be submitted to the Legislature around April.
Committee chair Ivan A. Blanco (R-Saipan) expects the devastation of Typhoon Mangkhut on Rota and Super Typhoon Yutu on Saipan and Tinian to have some impact on the revenue that will be collected next fiscal year.
“There will definitely be an impact on our fiscal resources, not only because of Mangkhut and Yutu, but because of the previous three back-to-back storms when we mobilized resources and reprogrammed funding to help citizens prepare,” Blanco said.
Lt. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios said in an interview last week that the administration is looking at about a 10-percent cut in the budget proposals and that they plan to encourage all government agencies and departments to implement their own cost-cutting measures, to scrutinize their spending allocations for their fiscal year 2020 operations.
“The governor [Ralph DLG Torres] is going to issue some very strong memos and communications to all departments regarding the cost-containment efforts that we’re going to implement across the board,” said Palacios.
The Ways and Means Committee in the House and the Fiscal Affairs Committee in the Senate will be holding separate public hearings and meetings with officials of government agencies and departments to hear their budget proposal.
“I understand the Executive Branch will be revising the fiscal year 2019 budget to account for these losses and for possible revenues from federal resources expended for recovery,” said Blanco. “It is the prerogative of the governor to either increase or decrease budgets for the executive departments, agencies, and/or component units. The members of the Ways and Means Committee and I look forward to collaborate with the governor to balance the current and future budgets.”
Rep. Ralph Yumul (R-Saipan) is the committee’s vice chairman. Its members include vice speaker Lorenzo I. Deleon Guerrero (R-Saipan), and Reps. Roman C. Benavente (R-Saipan), Antonio SN Borja (R-Tinian), Joel C. Camacho (R-Saipan), Luis John DLG Castro (R-Saipan), Joseph Leepan T. Guerrero (R-Saipan), Jose I. Itibus (R-Saipan), Donald M. Manglona (Ind-Rota), Janet U. Maratita (R-Saipan), and John Paul P. Sablan (R-Saipan).
The CNMI budget in fiscal year 2019 was a record-high $258.14 million—$11.2 million higher than the $247 million in fiscal year 1997, at the peak of the Commonwealth’s economy. The fiscal year 2019 budget was $21.4 million higher than the fiscal year 2018 budget of $236.77 million.
