Legislature disappointed with budget veto

Lawmakers from both chambers were dismayed over Gov. Juan N. Babauta’s decision to veto the entire budget bill for fiscal year 2005, saying they put in a lot of effort to make the budget happen.

“It’s sad, disappointing,” said Rep. Oscar M. Babauta, co-chair of the conference committee that tackled the 2005 appropriation.

For his part, Sen. Diego Songao, a member of the conference panel, said he felt that the Legislature put enough time to assess the budget and come up with a sensible recommendation of $217.7 million.

“I think we had enough time to look into that,” said Songao.

House leadership spokesman Charles Reyes said the leadership was not expecting that the budget would be vetoed in its entirety.

“We’re hopeful that he [governor] would recognize the efforts of the Legislature. I think they are not happy that we are not spending enough. I think they’d prefer to spend more and raise taxes,” said Reyes.

He said the budget conference committee’s work could not be underestimated since its members “spent a lot of time” working at it.

“They [even] went overtime so we could have a new budget,” he said.

Senate President Joaquin A. Adriano, meantime, said he respects the administration’s decision on the budget.

“Since the beginning, the governor has been asking for the PSS budget increase. He said he would veto the budget if that’s not addressed,” he said.

Adriano declined to give further comments on specific reasons cited by the governor.

He quipped, though, that politics may have something to do with the “accounting tricks” in the budget bill as cited by the governor.

“As you know, there [are lawmakers] running for governor. There are three of them here. I think it’s the paragraph that answers that. It’s political,” he said.

House Speaker Benigno Fitial and Sen. Luis Crisostimo have both declared their intent to run against the incumbent governor in this year’s gubernatorial race.

The Babauta, in his veto message yesterday, said that the House Bill 14-250 contained “errors and accounting tricks.”

Rep. Babauta said that the Legislature merely acted on the budget bill, based on the projections submitted by the Department of Finance.

“We based those increases on their increased projections,” said Babauta.

On the accusation that the bill neglects public health and public safety, he said that DPS itself reported that its priority is the improved status of their employment and salary of employees.

“That’s the issue which we addressed when we appropriated the within-grade increase and wage adjustment,” he said.

On the Marianas Visiting Authority’s reduced budget from $6 million to $5 million, the lawmaker said, “We are mindful of the tourism growth, but take note that when we acted on the budget bill, the Approved Destination Status was not yet in place with China.”

The CNMI signed the ADS agreement with China in Beijing on Dec. 30.

The ADS was not taken into consideration, he said, when the Legislature endorsed the $217.7 million on Dec. 17.

On the lack of budget for utilities, he said the Legislature had merely based it on the claims of the administration that it should only be paying not more than $5 million every year.

“The government and the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. are blaming each other. The administration is contesting its billing,” he said. The Legislature identified only $4 million for utilities while the administration said it requires nearly $8 million for such purpose.

He expressed disgust on the suggestion that the Legislature did not do much thinking when it passed the budget. “We studied the budget. It’s very similar to other budgets passed,” said the veteran congressman.

As to the purported accounting tricks, he said the administration may have probably referred to the different format used by the conference committee.

“Instead of banking only on the summary budget sheet, we took the entire budget as you would see… Every department’s budget is reflected on the budget bill,” he said.

He said the administration may have also found unacceptable the Legislature’s decision to give agency and department heads reprogramming authority over funds, thus taking some of the authority away from the governor.

Babauta said the 2005 proposed appropriation was “a good legislation.”

Overall, Babauta said the governor’s veto would be “a big disappointment for the many government employees who are expecting to get paid and get increases” under the 2005 budget bill.

“Employees have been waiting for this for a long time. Now, its impossible because the governor vetoed it,” he said.

Among others, he said, the budget bill provided increased funds for “long-neglected agencies” such as the Election Commission.

“I’m disappointed. We funded some long-neglected offices of the government. We supported the Election Commission’s increased budget because it needs such funds this election year,” he said.

The lawmaker said the House will meet next week to review the governor’s veto of the budget. Personally, he said, he would support an override of the veto.

The conference committee, which was co-chaired by Sen. Joseph Mendiola, allotted $4.1 million for salary adjustments. Of this, $2.2 million shall be used to pay within-grade increases of qualified government employees or those civil service-covered employees, $1 million for frozen steps personnel under Public Law 10-76, and $942,522 for the retroactive payment of Rota and Tinian government personnel pursuant to P.L. 7-31.

Rep. Babauta admitted that the salary adjustment would not be enough to cover all the dues owed the government personnel, which he said, amounts to some $6 million. But he said that whatever is left would be paid using the lapsed funds in a quarterly basis.

“We’re hoping that by end of the fiscal year [September 2005], all salary adjustment is settled,” said the lawmaker.