Senate Fiscal Affairs panel passes House’s FY25 budget with amendments

The Senate Standing Fiscal Affairs Committee has passed the House of Representatives’ version of the fiscal year 2025 budget with a few amendments.

Last Friday, the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee met to discuss House Bill 23-115, House Draft 1, House Schedule 1; essentially the House’s version of the FY25 budget proposed by the Office of the Governor last July.

The committee voted in favor of passing the House Bill with amendments to include two additional amendments specifically to reporting requirements.

According to Fiscal Affairs Committee chair Sen. Donald M. Manglona (Ind-Rota), the proposed amendments to the House Bill are to add additional sections requiring Department of Finance to report any additional revenue collected that is not detailed in the FY25 budget if it exceeds $200,000; and to include language that penalizes government departments who don’t comply with budget reporting requirements.

“[The proposed amendments include] adding a section D that mentions that the secretary of Finance shall report any additional revenue in excess of $200,000 that have been received that are not identified by this act. As for the penalties for failure to report, it is proposed by the committee that we include similar language to was indicated in Section 713 by taking the same language and applying to 712 in terms of the violations of that section,” said Manglona.

The committee unanimously voted in favor of passing the amendments and it will be presented before the full Senate body in a later session.

Sen. Corina Magofna (Ind-Siapan), the committee vice chair, was the one who made the recommendations to add these additional sections and languages.

Specifically, Magofna raised concerns about the need to hold government heads accountable is they violate the reporting requirements.

“I do see Section 713 [of the bill] details violations of spending limits; however, I don’t see anything that pertains to noncompliance of reporting requirements. Section 712 under reporting requirements, we don’t have anything that holds people accountable for noncompliance of the reporting requirements. I just feel like we can impose all these requirements but if there is no real consequences, what is point of even setting requirements if they are not to be enforced. We have all these requirements but no teeth. If it’s not done, it’s not done, and we continue to move on and what’s the point of that,” she said.

Magofna added that these reports are important for the legislature to make sound decisions and for planning purposes.

“I feel like what is the point of requiring these reports be submitted to the legislature if only some are submitted and not the rest? It’s about taking responsibility,” she said.

Sen. Corina L. Magofna