Previous Story
Senate passes $217M budget
|
Posted on Oct 27 2004
The Senate unanimously voted yesterday to pass a $217.7 million budget for fiscal year 2005, restoring some cuts made on certain agencies, according to Senate fiscal affairs chair Joseph Mendiola.
The Senate approved the amended appropriation bill during a session yesterday on Tinian.
Senate majority floor leader Paul Manglona said Mendiola’s committee recommended to adopt the budget level of agencies based on the last government-approved budget of $213 million.
The last budget bill passed by the Legislature was for fiscal year 2003.
“We commend Sen. Mendiola for the hard work he put on this legislation. We passed it without much delay. What the fiscal committee did was to put it at the level of the last budgetary measure and add some more, looking at the governor’s proposal. Hopefully the House will accept it; otherwise, we could compromise to ensure we give the CNMI a new budget,” said Manglona.
He said, though, that not all budget requests were accommodated by the Senate. “It’s just tough because there’s not enough money to meet all the agencies’ requests.”
Earlier, the administration asked the Legislature to restore the cuts made by the House of Representatives on the budgets of the Marianas Visitors Authority, Public School System, Public Health, Public Safety, and utilities.
Exact figures of the restored budget were not readily available as of yesterday.
The Senate amended and raised the House-approved $212.7 million spending plan after getting additional revenue projections from the administration totaling $5.1 million.
The House last week approved the Senate-amended budget resolution.
“We’re just waiting for the Senate to pass the budget bill. And we’re ready to concur or meet in a conference,” said House Ways and Means Committee chair Rep. Norman Palacios.
