Governor renews calls for new budget

Gov. Juan N. Babauta has asked the Legislature anew to pass “a balanced budget” for fiscal year 2006.

“There are now only 38 days to the beginning of Fiscal Year 2006, but the House of Representatives has not taken any official action toward the passage of a new budget,” said Babauta in an Aug. 24, 2005 letter to Senate President Joaquin G. Adriano and House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial.

On Thursday, Aug. 25, the House chamber passed on first reading House Concurrent Resolution 14-3, which identifies $208 million in available resources for the next fiscal year. The measure gives a net balance of $156 million for government operations in view of the $2 million deduction for deficit reduction and $50 million piecemeal budget for the Public School System. The administration submitted a $225.8 million for FY 2006.

In his letter, Babauta noted that the government has had no budget since FY 2003. He said the Legislature did not pass an FY 2004 budget, while last year, the FY 2005 budget was not passed until December or three months after the new fiscal year began.

In a recent interview, Fitial lamented that it was Babauta who “kept vetoing” the Legislature-approved budgets.

“We pass a budget every year but it is the governor who turns it down. He keeps vetoing it,” said Fitial.

Babauta vetoed the FY 2005 budget in January this year, saying it was unresponsive to the actual needs of the government. The Legislature approved a $217.7 million spending plan, out of the $226 million budget submission by the administration for FY 2005.

In his Aug. 24 letter, Babauta explained that it was necessary for him to send back the FY 2005 budget bill “because it was not balanced as the law requires.”

The governor said that “passage of a budget should be given priority over every other job of the Legislature because a budget for spending taxpayers’ money is essential to having a well-run government.”

He said that, due to the lack of a new appropriation, the government is still operating under the FY 2003 budget that provides funding where none is needed and allots no funding for functions that did not exist in FY 2003.

He cited the Department of Public Works , which still receives funds for solid waste management, a function now paid from a separate revolving fund.