$180M budget requests exceed projected revenue of $102M in FY 2013

Government agencies’ total budget requests reached some $180 million, far exceeding the projected revenue available for government operations in fiscal year 2013 which is only $102 million.

Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos said the major task now is to bring down the $180 million to $102 million between now and April 1, the deadline for submitting the governor’s budget to the Legislature.

“As always the total request exceed the estimate resources. That’s the reason for the Office of Management and Budget in conducting these meetings with the agencies right now to see if we can pare the budget requests down to the bare minimum and bare essentials. That’s a work in progress,” Inos said in an interview right after receiving from the Marianas Visitors Authority a five-year tourism plan in the governor’s conference room on Thursday afternoon.

The $102-million budget in FY 2013 is the same level as the FY 2012, which includes the same austerity measures of 16-hour work cuts every two weeks and unpaid holidays.

“They always come high with the expectation that they’re going to go through a screening process that will eventually be brought down. At the end of the day, it’s going to be $102 million,” said Inos, who oversees government finances.

Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee chair Jovita Taimanao (Ind-Rota), in a separate interview, said her panel will wait for the governor’s transmittal of the proposed FY 2013 budget before conducting meetings with agencies.

Taimanao, however, said the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee continues its budget sessions with certain departments and agencies to tackle their actual spending and allotments in the first quarter of 2012. She said the panel hopes that agencies will no longer incur deficits in 2013.

Taimanao said this early, her committee has already found out that some agencies’ spending has already exceeded their allotment.

“My committee will be coming up with a report on its findings; for example, which agencies are overspending and how much they have overspent,” Taimanao said.

Virginia Villagomez, the governor’s special assistant for management and budget, and her staff have been meeting with agencies to review their budget submission, as well as determine whether their departments maximized the use of federal funds within program authority in times of serious financial and cash constraints.

Without a budget passed by Oct. 1, the government will have to shut down until a new budget is passed.