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Emergency session eyed for FY06 budget
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Posted on Oct 20 2005
Gov. Juan N. Babauta bared a plan yesterday to call for an emergency session of the Legislature for the sole purpose of passing a budget for fiscal year 2006.
“We are supposed to already have passed a budget by Oct. 1st. But Oct. 1st has come and gone,” Babauta said. “I am considering calling for an emergency session as soon as I get the legal analysis done and see where we are in terms of financial situation.”
Babauta said he would push for a budget that includes $50 million for the Public School System and increases appropriation for the government’s utility bills from the current $5 million to $14 million.
The governor also blamed the House leadership for the lack of a budget for FY2006.
The House of Representatives has adopted a concurrent resolution identifying $206.5 million as available resources for the Commonwealth this fiscal year. But the House failed to author a complementary bill that provides a breakdown of the lump-sum. This task falls on the responsibility of the House Committee of Ways and Means, which is headed by the governor’s fellow Republican, Rep. Norman Palacios.
Another Republican Party member in the House, Rep. Arnold Palacios, has said that the Ways and Means committee chair was not getting enough support from the leadership.
Because of the lack of a budget bill from the House, the Senate has taken it upon itself to allocate the $206.5-million budget. The Senate Committee on Fiscal Affairs is now drafting a budget that grants PSS its $50-million funding request.
The committee, headed by Sen. Joseph Mendiola, also plans on keeping the budgets of the departments of Public Health and Public Safety, the Northern Marianas College, and the Scholarship Office at their current level.
All the other agencies are expected to experience a 17-percent budget cut.
The Senate is scheduled to adopt the budget proposal in a session next week and send it to the House for concurrence.
The government has been operating on a $213 million continuing resolution since FY2003.
Government officials agree that a new budget should be enacted this year, in view of the decreased resources available to the Commonwealth.
