Mendiola decries House’s approach on budget

Senate fiscal affairs committee chair Joseph Mendiola described as “irresponsible” the House of Representatives’ endorsement of a piecemeal budget for the Public School System without resolving the funding of other agencies.

“I don’t like the way the House did the budget. It’s irresponsible for us to approve PSS without regard to other agencies. We really have to look at the entire budget, not just of one agency,” said Mendiola yesterday.

He said that not acting on a new budget for other agencies “is giving the governor the authority to do whatever he wants for the rest of the agencies.”

“That’s not good. That’s abdicating our authority,” said Mendiola.

Senate majority leader Paul Manglona expressed a similar opinion earlier, saying that not acting on the fiscal year 2006 budget is like agreeing to shut down the Legislature.

Mendiola said the House should not just pass a $208 million concurrent resolution without specifying the cuts.

“If you endorse $208 million, it means major cuts in funding for all agencies because we’re on a $213-million level right now. Now, it’s our job to do the cutting. We don’t want to leave that to just one person—the governor. It’s the Legislature’s job,” he said.

He said the Legislature should call in heads of departments for budget consultation.

Mendiola, who has been nagging the House Ways and Means Committee on the FY 2006 budget, said he believes now that the budget would not pass on or before Sept. 30.

“It’s impossible now unless all of us are locked up in one room for four weeks to deliberate and pass the budget. I’m serious about that,” said Mendiola.

For his part, House Ways and Means Committee chair Norman S. Palacios said that budget bill is now before the entire House.

“We’ve tackled it. We’ve made our recommendation and it’s now up to the entire House members,” said Palacios.

During a recent session, the House adopted on first reading House Concurrent Resolution 14-3 identifying $208 million in available resources for FY 2006. At that level, the government will only have $156 million as operating budget due to the $2 million that will be automatically deducted as 1 percent share for the annual deficit reduction and the $50 million for the PSS.

The lower chamber had passed on first reading House Bill 14-371, which increases the PSS funding in FY 2006 to $50 million from the existing $37.2 million.

Meantime, Mendiola said that passing a new budget after Sept. 30 is “condoning deficit for the next fiscal year.”

“We know that we’re getting less revenues next year so why start the new fiscal year on a continuing resolution? We’d be condoning a budget deficit. That’s not doing our job,” he said.