Senate tackles FY 2001 budget today

Uncertain as how the proposed FY 2000 budget will fare in the Senate, the Fiscal Affairs Committee has scheduled a meeting tomorrow to discuss whether to approve the package passed by the lower house.

Committee chair Sen. Edward U. Maratita said they are hopeful that they could identify extra revenues to accommodate the needs of other departments and agencies that did not receive any increase from the budget proposal drafted by the House.

But, at the same time, he voiced out his disagreement over the cuts made by their counterpart, the House Ways and Means Committee, on the appropriation set aside for the Rota and Tinian municipalities.

Both legislative districts have wanted to retain the amount they had approved under the FY 99 budget, which was about $2 million higher than the proposed allocation of a little over $13 million in the current fiscal year.

Although it is already halfway through FY 2000, the House has just passed the budget proposal amounting to $211 million — which is lower by $4 million from the previous year’s spending level.

Based on its version, several departments and agencies will have to suffer cuts in order to increase the budget for critical services like the Public School System, police, hospital as well as scholarship and medical referral programs.

According to Mr. Maratita, these offices would rather want to maintain their budget limit under the continuing resolution reflection FY 99 expenditures since they can have enough resources to continue delivery of public services.

If the House budget act is signed into law, they will be left with no choice but to curtail their services and lay off personnel so as not to overshoot their budget, said the Fiscal Affairs chairman.

“The committee will get together to brainstorm and come out with a pretty much workable budget for the executive branch, the Legislature and the judicial branch,” added Mr. Maratita.

The panel will also meet with the Office of Management and Budget to try to identify other possible sources of income so that funding for other departments and agencies will not be cut.

“We will request OMB to identify if there are extra resources so to give us actual collection or how much we really have as total revenues for this year,” Mr. Maratita pointed out.

Asked whether the Senate would approve the budget at all, he said the committee will have a definite answer after the initial review, although he hinted that the general sentiment by members is not pass it.

“At this time, there is no decision but we should know pretty much the direction of the Senate,” said the chairman, adding that they would be a lot of changes in the budget act if they do agree to accept it.

The FY 2000 budget’s approval has derailed since September last year due to differences between the Tenorio administration and the previous Legislature on how to distribute the meager resources.

Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio, meanwhile, is expected to hand in today his budget proposal for FY 2001 as provided under the Constitution.
Finance officials have projected the amount to reach over $220 million.