Budget panel OKs $217M

The legislative conference committee that was created to tackle the budget has agreed on a $217 million funding level for the government this fiscal year.

House committee chair Rep. Oscar M. Babauta said the committee agreed in principle to consider the $5.1 million in additional revenues submitted by the Executive Branch.

Committee members, however, have yet to decide on how much would be given to individual agencies. One strong proposal, he said, comes from the Rota and Tinian lawmakers, who want to get at least $500,000 for each island to pay off retroactive salaries, as espoused by the House budget bill.

“The [lawmakers] see the need to continue what the House has initiated; that is, reserving certain amount to start [paying off the] Rota and Tinian government employees’ retroactive pay,” he said.

He said panel members “pretty much agreed to fund it from the general fund.”

Babauta, meantime, said that the joint committee has asked the Attorney General’s Office to submit an opinion explaining the nature of the $50 increase in the labor fee for nonresident workers.

He confirmed that the committee was advised not to use the money that would be raised from the increased fees—totaling $1.5 million—in view of possible litigation.

“We’ve heard from legal counsels from the community that this issue would be up for litigation. Some groups are questioning the imposition of the fee. There’s a question whether the increase is a tax or a fee,” he said.

The Department of Labor implemented the increase in the labor fee from $225 to $275 last July.

Meanwhile, Babauta said that the committee has approved to add a new judiciary division called Court Administration, but this, he noted, does not require additional funding.

“There’s no increase for the Judiciary. What would happen is that both the Supreme Court and the Superior Court would put together this office, a new aspect of the Judiciary that the committee had approved,” he said.

The Judiciary, he said, will keep its 2003 funding level of over $5 million.

Babauta said the committee also tried “to untangle” a Senate provision which allocates any unused funds from the Office of the Public Auditor’s 1 percent deduction to the Public School System. This is to compensate for the $2 million that the Senate had cut from the House-approved budget for PSS.

“The Senate version actually [took out] $2 million from PSS but the Senate has this companion provision which allows the PSS to receive beyond its budget by getting OPA’s unspent funds,” he said.

As far as the House panel is concerned, he said, it prefers to keep its budget for PSS at over $38 million.

The House approved $38 million for PSS, $306,000 for the Board of Education, and $500,000 for the technical education program.

The Senate, for its part, approved $36.4 million for PSS, $286,588 for BOE, and $500,000 for technical education program.