House told to make up its mind on budget

A Senate budget panel head called on his counterpart in the House of Representatives to make clear the approach in tackling the Fiscal Year 2006 appropriation.

“There’s a confusion. They’re saying that they would do a piecemeal budget. There’s also a talk of passing the entire budget. Then there’s this $210-million budget proposal,” said Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee chair Joseph M. Mendiola yesterday.

Mendiola and House Ways and Means Committee chair Norman S. Palacios met with administration officials led by governor senior policy advisor Bob Schwalbach and Management and Budget director Ed Tenorio yesterday morning to discuss the FY 2006 budget.

Palacios said his committee will meet this morning to determine the available funding sources.

“Hopefully, we’ll come up with the figure,” he said.

House majority leader Oscar M. Babauta said panel members would decide today whether to go piecemeal budgeting or not.

“The chairman [Palacios] is proposing for a piecemeal. We’ll decide how to handle it. We have not determined the available resources yet,” said Babauta.

Lawmakers confirmed that the budget panel gets advice from fiscal analyst Eli Cabrera, who is employed by the Legislative Bureau. The House panel had earlier sought advice from financed consultant Rex Palacios.

Meantime, House minority leader Arnold I. Palacios said his group would submit a recommendation on the budget process.

“I will meet with the minority bloc to take a look at what needs to be done. We’ll submit our recommendation. At this time, we don’t want to push ourselves in because we respect the House Ways and Means but we want to have a significant role or input in the budget,” he said.

Meantime, minority bloc spokesman Rep. Ray Tebuteb said he fully supports the Babauta administration’s budget package, including the proposed poker license fee increase and suspending appropriation of tobacco funds.

“I support this poker fee increase because we need to fund the schools and other essential services,” said Tebuteb.

The administration submitted on April 1 a $225.8-million budget proposal for FY 2006. It included revenue generating measures such as raising the poker fee by $6,000, tapping the local poker fees, and suspending the use of Tobacco Control and Tobacco Settlement Funds.

These moves are projected to raise an additional $19 million, which the administration said would primarily be spent for PSS, Department of Public Health, Department of Public Safety, and newly created Department of Corrections.

Earlier, the administration said it would only be able to generate $206 million from existing resources in view of the projected revenue decline from the garment sector.

The government currently operates on a $213 million continuing resolution.

For his part, Rep. Palacios said he supports “any level that is realistic.” He said the administration’s proposal is “realistic in a way.”

He, however, said that budget projections may change since the initial submission was made in April.

“The budget was submitted on April 1. There have been changes since then. The user fee revenue reduction has to be taken into consideration,” he said.