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House nixes Senate version of budget revision bill
Yumul appointed as chair of House Conference Committee
The House of Representatives rejected Friday afternoon the Senate’s proposed changes in the House bill that would revise the budget law for the CNMI government’s operations for fiscal year 2023.
With 17 voting “yes” and two “no” to floor leader Rep. Edwin K. Propst’s (D-Saipan) motion to reject House Bill 23-31, a bicameral conference committee will now be tasked with hammering out a mutually acceptable legislation to revise the budget law.
House Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez (Ind-Saipan) appointed Rep. Ralph N. Yumul (Ind-Saipan) to chair the House Conference Committee, with Reps. Blas Jonathan T. Attao (Ind-Saipan) and John Paul P. Sablan (Ind-Saipan) as members, and Rep. Marissa Renee Flores (Ind-Saipan) as an alternate member.
Reps. Julie A. Ogo (Ind-Rota) and Patrick H. San Nicolas (R-Tinian) were the ones who voted “no” to Propst’s motion to reject and move into a conference committee.
Rep. Malcom Jason Omar (Ind-Saipan) was absent as he is currently in Washington, D.C. attending a policy academy pertaining to suicide prevention.
Before the voting, Attao cited changes to the bill in the Senate’s version that prompted the House to reject the bill. Among those changes is the addition of $225,000 to the budgets of both Rota and Tinian.
Attao said the position of the House would be to reject this Senate’s version because they want to understand why the additional funds were being given to both municipalities on top of what has already been allocated to them.
Attao said the House is making a $780,000 cut in the budgets of the Saipan and Northern Islands to get employees through 72 work hours.
“It is very important that we get into a conference committee, so we can understand the Senate’s position as to why they added the additional funds to [Rota] and [Tinian],” Attao said.
Last April 10, the Senate unanimously adopted the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee’s proposed changes in the budget revision bill, House Bill 23-31, HS1.
Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee chair Sen. Donald M. Manglona (Ind-Rota) said that among their proposed changes were providing an additional $200,000 to Medical Referral, in addition to the $1 million that was identified by the administration, and giving additional funding to the operations of the Executive Branch, as well as two municipalities.
Last March 17, the House unanimously passed House Bill 23-31, House Substitute 1, to repeal and re-enact the budget law for fiscal year 2023 (Public Law 22-22).
Gov. Arnold I. Palacios asked the Legislature to revise the fiscal year 2023 budget, noting that just after the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, a large portion of the funds from the American Rescue Plan Act that were available for appropriation in fiscal year 2023 have already been expended and are no longer available for the rest of fiscal year 2023.
