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‘2006 budget must be prioritized over wage hike’
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Posted on Jul 24 2005
The Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee cited its counterpart at the House of Representatives for “misplaced priority” noting that the latter first held a public hearing on a minimum wage hike bill rather than on the must-pass budget for fiscal year 2006.
“He gives the minimum wage more priority than the budget itself. Where’s the priority? A lot of people are begging for a new budget. It seems the entire CNMI government is at the mercy of House Ways and Means Committee,” said Sen. Joseph M. Mendiola, chairman of the Fiscal Affairs Committee.
Rep. Norman S. Palacios said, however, that he only followed the instruction of the House leadership to conduct hearings on two bills: minimum wage hike and user fee immediately.
“We’ll tackle the budget after these [minimum wage, user fee]. We can’t do all at the same time,” said Palacios.
Mendiola said, though, that the CNMI government faces a more serious problem if no new budget is passed before Sept. 30.
“If we don’t pass a new budget in two months, it means that we are condoning our government to run on budget deficit,” said Mendiola.
He cited that as certified by the Babauta administration, the government would only be able to collect $206 million revenues in FY06, which is $7 million short than the continuing resolution of $213 million.
“It seems that we’re not be moving at all. We are in a helpless situation. See, they have not even introduced the concurrent resolution and we’re already in end of July,” said Mendiola.
Palacios’ committee said earlier that it would soon introduce a $206 million concurrent resolution.
So far, no such measure has been introduced in the lower chamber.
“I think the budget should be prioritized over the minimum wage. This can be done later,” said the senator.
