Easing of expenditure authority eyed • To help departments cope with budget cut, Rep. Reyes says cabinet members should be granted reprogramming power

In light of growing clamor for higher government budget despite limited funds for Fiscal Year 2000, the House Ways and Means Committee is seeking greater flexibility for each department and agency to allow them to handle their own finances.

The Legislature is also likely to grant full reprogramming authority to Cabinet members so that they can use funds from other areas for other immediate needs of their departments, according to committee chair Rep. Karl T. Reyes.

This is the only measure that lawmakers can offer at this time to the executive offices in exchange for their requests for additional money under the spending package that was submitted by Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio last April.

The Ways and Means Committee has heard appeals from several government offices, including the Department of Public Safety and the Public School System, for bigger share of the budget, but the panel has not committed new funds due to the financial crisis besetting the Commonwealth.

According to Reyes, the committee is open to the idea of relaxing the government regulations on expenditure authority because of the financial strains facing vital offices, like DPS and PSS.

Through these means, lawmakers hope the executive branch would be permitted to tap available funds within the department for other needs that have been left unfunded by the central government.

“The committee has been proposing to allow these people to reprogram their funds up to hundred percent so that they can utilize it themselves immediately where they need to use it more,” the representative said in an interview.

He added that if the revenue collection improve within the fiscal year, the committee would recommend infusion of fresh money into the agency’s operations.

“That would only be the flexibility that they might have if every expenses is just within their budgeted amount as submitted by the governor,” said Reyes.

The proposed budget has reached $206 million, a decline of only about two percent from the FY 1999 revised spending level of $210 million despite continuous economic harsh conditions on the island. The Legislature has until September to approve the proposal.

Reyes’ committee is tasked with the budget deliberation before it goes to the legislative floor for voting, which under the Constitution must be completed before the current fiscal year ends on September 30.

While legislators acknowledge the pressing needs of the departments, their hands are tied in appropriating the meager revenues to operations because more than 80 percent have been set aside for personnel costs.

Reyes previously has vowed to look into the personnel costs as proposed in the FY 2000 budget and whether departments or agencies have not exceeded their allocation when Tenorio slashed this year’s spending limit by about 13.4 percent.

Since the $206 million is the projected income of the government within the next 12 months, some legislators have expressed fear that the estimate may dip further to $180 million as a result of the continuous decline in tourist arrivals to the CNMI.

The administration also has yet to fully estimate the decline in the collections from user fees paid out by garment manufacturers, who have warned earlier of business slowdown in the next few months due to increasing global competition and the impact of the recent $1 billion lawsuit.