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Missing $8M puzzles Pago lawmakers
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Posted on Sep 19 2008
[B]PAGO PAGO, American Samoa[/B] (Samoa News/PIR)—It now appears that the total American Samoa Government FY 2009 budget is a little over US$333 million and not US$340.85 million.
The House Budget and Appropriation Committee discovered yesterday the $7.79 million in federal grants listed in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) FY 2009 budget does not exist. And in fact, the total DHS budget is only $435,000 and not $8.2 million as stated in the budget book.
DHS acting director Mike Sala told the House committee yesterday that there are no federal grants to homeland security as all homeland security funds have been frozen.
He said he doesn’t know where the $7.79 million comes from in his department’s budget, listed under federal grants. He added that he didn’t provide such a figure when his department’s budget was submitted to the ASG Budget Office for inclusion in the overall government budget.
Malemo Tausaga, an official of the Budget Office who has been at every House budget hearing, said perhaps this was the figure from last year’s budget. He then humbly apologized to the House committee for the discrepancy and added that the committee can make necessary changes during their budget review.
