House panel set to unveil budget plan for FY09

The Fitial administration has accused lawmakers of trying to pass the buck on making necessary cuts in the fiscal year 2009 budget.

The House Ways and Means Committee will unveil today its proposed budget, which includes a $79.2 million lump-sum appropriation for the Executive Branch. Under the measure, Gov. Benigno R. Fitial could allocate the funds in any way he pleases.

The governor’s spokesperson called the proposal “an attempt to abdicate responsibility for making the very difficult and painful decisions that urgently need to be made.”

“It seems that some in the Legislature may wish to pass this enormous responsibility off to the Governor for political cover, so that the Governor would be blamed for doing what needs to be done, but which nobody wants to do. It would be better if the decisions were made jointly and responsibly,” said press secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr.

He also said that Fitial regrets not having a budget passed for FY2009, which begins today, or even for the fiscal year that ended yesterday. The governor previously submitted a budget that included austerity measures, but the Legislature, Reyes said, “did not act to make the tough and unpopular financial decisions, which may leave us worse off.”

Rep. Victor Hocog, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he is surprised the administration opposes having full authority over the budget of the Executive Branch.

“If they had given us more resources [to appropriate], it wouldn’t be like this,” Hocog said. “But given the limited resources, we believe it would be in the best interest of the Executive Branch to be able to manage its own funds.”

The government budget for FY2009 is $156.7 million. This excludes $3 million for the Department of Public Lands, whose income can only be used for its own operations and for investment by the Marianas Public Land Trust.

In addition to the $79.2 million for the Executive Branch, the proposed budget includes funding for the Public School System, $38.2 million; Northern Marianas College, $6.2 million; Rota municipality, $8.5 million; Tinian municipality, $8.4 million; Saipan municipality, $2.1 million; Legislature, $6.5 million; Judiciary, and $4.3 million; Washington Representative’s Office, $209,000; and other programs.

Hocog said the proposed budget contains no austerity provisions such as the so-called austerity Fridays and unpaid holidays, which directly impact the income of government employees.

Instead, he said, the measure proposes to cut each lawmaker’s budget from $155,000 to $105,000. “There was a heated discussion about this. But I had everybody calm down and support the reduction,” Hocog said.

The proposed $50,000 cut against each lawmaker’s budget would save the government a total of $1.45 million. The House of Representatives has 20 members and the Senate has nine members.