Senate to House: Where’s FY06 budget?

With barely five weeks remaining before the start of fiscal year 2006, the Senate renewed its call yesterday on the House of Representatives for the immediate introduction of a new budget bill.

“We’re sounding like a broken record now on the need to pass a new budget. The thing is, it has to start in the House. We keep asking ‘Where is it now?’” said Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee chair Joseph Mendiola yesterday.

He said he understands that the House is tackling other pressing issues such as the fuel surcharge fee, but he said that budget deliberations should have started already.

“The only way now to have a new budget is to lock up the lawmakers—House members and senators—and don’t let them out until they pass the budget for fiscal year 2006,” said Mendiola.

House Ways and Means Committee chair Norman S. Palacios said yesterday that his committee would introduce a House concurrent resolution identifying available resources for FY 2006 on Sept. 1.

He said his panel is still waiting for the Department of Finance’s collection report for July and, possibly, August.

“It [concurrent resolution] is almost done. It should be done by next week,” said Palacios.

The congressman said the budget bill can be passed anytime, even after Sept. 30.

Last year, the Legislature managed to pass a $217 million budget for FY 2005 in December. That spending plan was eventually vetoed by the Executive Branch, saying that it was unresponsive to the government’s actual needs. The Babauta administration had asked for a $226 million budget for FY 2005.

This year, the administration submitted a $225.8 million proposal, which includes $206 million in projected available resources and about $19 million worth of revenue enhancement measures.

Palacios’ panel earlier endorsed a $206 million budget for FY 2006 but this has not been officially introduced up to now.

Yesterday, Palacios said that the committee may push for a $209 million budget in consideration of an anticipated $3 million from the Tobacco Settlement Funds in FY 2006.

Last month, Senate President Joaquin G. Adriano called on the House to keep the 2003 budget level of $215 million for FY 2006, saying that the government cannot run on $206 million.

“If you do that, you’d see layoffs of personnel and severe budget cuts across the board,” said Adriano.

He further said that adopting a $206 million budget would only net some $190 million as actual budget, in view of the automatic deduction of 2 percent to reduce the budget deficit and 1 percent for the Office of the Public Auditor.