‘Act on FY06 budget promptly and openly’

The Executive Branch is calling on the Legislature to begin fiscal year 2006 budget deliberations promptly and openly “to avoid haste and errors.”

“I urge the Legislature…to open its doors to public input, to make deliberation on the budget an open and transparent process, to begin work immediately and avoid haste and the errors that can result when action is delayed until the last minute,” said Gov. Juan N. Babauta in his April 1 budget transmittal letter to the Legislature.

Most importantly, he said, the Legislature should “acknowledge the real, present-day costs of providing the core public services.”

Babauta vetoed last January the Legislature-approved $217-million appropriation for FY 2005, citing, among others, that it was “unresponsive” to the government’s actual needs.

The House of Representatives and the Senate had completed their budget deliberation on the FY 2005 budget in December 2004.

In his letter, Babauta said that since the Legislature has not re-approved an FY 2005 budget, the government continues to operate under the FY 2003 budget, which “continues to drift away from the realities of today.”

“It provides funding where none is needed…and it provides no funding for functions which simply didn’t exist in FY 2003,” he said.

Babauta said a new budget is needed particularly at this time when revenues have declined “and when the changing structure of the CNMI economy and the global economy of which we are a part of are so much in flux.”

“Living in the past, as we do by continuing to guide ourselves by the FY 2003 budget, is unacceptable and frankly, dangerous,” he said.

Further, the governor said the Legislature essentially abdicates its constitutional responsibility when “it leaves it to the Executive Branch to make, in effect, all decisions regarding the use of the General Fund.”

Meantime, the governor told the Legislature that proposed increased poker fees would be specifically used for education.

The administration, in submitting a $225-million budget request for FY06, proposes to raise poker fees by $6,000.

Babauta said that the Legislature had rejected past budget proposals by his administration in part “because of concern that savings or additions were not allocated to specific purposes.”

In his proposal, Babauta endorsed the full $50 million request by the Public School. Right now, PSS receives $37.2 million.

The administration said that revenue projection from existing resources only amounts to $206 million. To collect $225.8 million, the administration asks the Legislature to redirect funds from the Tobacco Settlement Fund, Tobacco Control Fund, and raise the poker licensure fee by $6,000.

It projects to get $$8.2 million from poker license fees, $7.3 million from suspension of poker fees from local funds, $2.2 million from the Tobacco Settlement and Control Funds, and $2 million from transfer of Tobacco Control Fund balance.