House passes $102M budget

The House of Representatives passed last night a contentious $102-million budget bill that had tempers flaring a few times from morning to late afternoon as members wrangled over 14 proposed amendments that ended up with only five being adopted.

Seven of the nine defeated or withdrawn floor amendments, including one declared “dead” because of a tie, were submitted by minority members.

The budget bill passed by a vote of 11-8. Rep. Edmund Villagomez (Cov-Saipan) was the only one absent.

The 11 who voted “yes” were members of the majority; the eight voting “no” were from the minority.

The bill now goes to the Senate for action.

House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan) vowed yesterday morning that the day won’t end without a budget passed, even if they have to stay in the chamber until midnight.

After heated discussions, several short breaks, an over two-hour lunch break, and calls for a committee of the whole, the House managed to pass a budget at 6:51pm.

Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota), in a phone interview last night, said he was initially hopeful that the House would consider giving additional funding to the Public School System and Northern Marianas College just so they can meet the federally mandated maintenance-of-effort requirements.

House minority members took turns offering floor amendments to help PSS and NMC, to no avail.

“I’m starting to see a pattern here and it’s not good,” said House minority leader Joseph Deleon Guerrero (R-Saipan) when minority members’ floor amendments were killed one after the other.

The majority had at least 11 “no” votes on most of the minority’s floor amendments.

Rep. Ray Basa’s (Cov-Saipan) budget bill now goes to the Senate for action.

Basa, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was asked several times by minority members—including Deleon Guerrero, Rep. Frank Dela Cruz (R-Saipan) and Rep. Teresita Santos (Ind-Rota)—about the absence of a budget spreadsheet.

Acting governor Eloy S. Inos made a brief visit to the Legislature yesterday, while the House was trying to pass the budget bill.

Inos, in an interview with reporters, said the administration hopes that the House and Senate will agree on a budget bill before the start of the new fiscal year so that there won’t be another partial government shutdown that could force over 1,000 government employees out of job for days.

The heated debate started at past 10am, when Rep. Janet Maratita (Ind-Saipan) offered a floor amendment seeking to remove the words “reasonable” and “qualified” when referring to allowed travel of members.

At this point, Rep. Froilan Tenorio (Cov-Saipan) and other members brought up the $4,500 monthly subsistence allowance for Rota and Tinian House members, as well as the $4,250 subsistence allowance for senators.

Tenorio said the Office of the Public Auditor has long recommended that such subsistence allowance be made through legislation and not through Senate rules. He said no House rules exist allowing such subsistence allowance.

Tenorio, Santos, and Rep. Trenton Conner (R-Tinian) bickered about the subsistence allowance. Other members joined the heated discussion.

In the end, the minority’s amendment was defeated.

Santos later said she and Conner didn’t have a problem with accountability and transparency, but the other provisions of the budget are too restrictive. For example, the bill does not allow advancement of any funds for spending of more than 10 calendar days. Santos said the speaker could call a session in 24 hours, and there’s limited flights from Rota and Tinian, among other things.

Another floor amendment that drew heated discussion was that of Dela Cruz, also from the minority, who wanted to include PSS and NMC on the list of agencies given a total of $5.05 million for utilities expenses.

The speaker said these were already embedded in the PSS and NMC budget, but the minority said the lack of a spreadsheet makes this hard to believe.

Those who voted “yes” on the budget bill were Basa, Cabrera, floor leader George Camacho (Cov-Saipan), Rep. Fred Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), Rep. Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan), Rep. Sylvester Iguel (Cov-Saipan), vice speaker Felicidad Ogumoro (Cov-Saipan), Rep. Joseph Palacios (R-Saipan), Rep. Ray Palacios (R-Saipan), Tenorio and Rep. Stanley Torres (Ind-Saipan).

Members who voted “no” were minority leader Joseph Deleon Guerrero (R-Saipan), Conner, Dela Cruz, Maratita, Rep. Tony Sablan (R-Saipan), Santos, Rep. Ray Tebuteb (R-Saipan) and Rep. Ray Yumul (R-Saipan).

In a two-day period, House members offered a total of 14 floor amendments, including one subsidiary motion.

On the first day of the budget deliberation on Tuesday, five floor amendments were offered, but only three were adopted—those of Demapan, Yumul, and Conner.

Rep. Fred Deleon Guerrero withdrew yesterday his floor amendment to drastically cut the annual lease payment to the La Fiesta property.

Yesterday, Maratita offered four floor amendments, including one that removes the $138,000 from the House leadership account and give the money instead to PSS. This was defeated, along with the three others she offered.

Two of Dela Cruz’s floor amendments also did not succeed. One drew a tie of 9-9, which the speaker said could mean the amendment was “moot,” or it’s as if it was defeated.

Basa withdrew his one floor amendment.

Yumul made a subsidiary motion to Joseph Deleon Guerrero’s floor amendment. Yumul’s subsidiary motion was adopted, and so was the main floor amendment. This was the fifth and last floor amendment the House adopted before voting on the main budget bill.

The version that passed is House Bill 17-215, House Substitute 1, House Draft 5.