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FY 2014 budget now at $135.786M
Gov. Eloy S. Inos signed into law yesterday a $12.386 million supplemental budget bill that brings to $135.786 million the total budget for fiscal year 2014—the highest annual appropriation since 2011 and now higher than the governor’s proposed fiscal year 2015 budget of $134.33 million.
The governor signed Rep. Tony Sablan’s (Ind-Saipan) House Bill 18-192, House Draft 1 into Public Law 18-53.
Rep. Ralph Yumul (Ind-Saipan), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said yesterday that the governor’s projected fiscal year 2015 budget is “very conservative” to begin with, so a supplemental budget for fiscal year 2015 should be “expected.”
He added that the electronic gaming license fee and related revenues are not yet included in the fiscal year 2014 budget, but at least one facility has already started operating. Yumul said if there are 112 machines, that’s already equivalent to $280,000 in license fee alone, so the governor would have to report that because it already exceeds $200,000.
The supplemental budget law that the governor signed yesterday takes into consideration the $60,000 that the House appropriated for the Commonwealth Election Commission.
This was not in the governor’s original proposal, which only included $5 million to be added to the government’s annual minimum guaranteed payment to the retirement settlement agreement and over $7.3 million for the payment of the employer share of the government health and life insurance premium.
Inos also signed yesterday Rep. Ray Tebuteb’s (Ind-Saipan) HB 18-39, HD1 into Public Law 18-54, authorizing the assessment of parking meter fees, requiring segregation of fees collected by senatorial districts, and authorizing local appropriation of those fees.
Also signed yesterday was Rep. Christopher Leon Guerrero’s (Cov-Saipan) HB 18-134 into Public Law 18-55, which deems the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate and House to be law enforcement officers and therefore with “full authority to enforce Commonwealth laws and shall have all the powers, authority and benefits of other law enforcement officers.”
