‘Passing budget is inherently problematic’

The Legislature cannot move on the budget bill as quickly as it has on the Ada-Hocog bill because the passage of budget is an inherently problematic process, the House majority said.

With barely two weeks before the end of the current fiscal year, the House of Representatives has yet to come up with a bill that provides the breakdown of the $206.5-million identified resources for FY 2006.

The Legislature has been working on a budget for several months now.

Meanwhile, it took both houses less than three weeks to pass a Senate bill that eases eligibility requirements for candidates for the House. Senate Bill 14-96 was introduced in late August, following the Commonwealth Election Commission’s decision to reject the nomination of Covenant Party candidate Rose Nelly T. Ada-Hocog based on alleged ineligibility. The bill is now sitting on the governor’s desk for approval.

“[S.B. 14-96] seems to be a fairly innocuous bill. It addresses a legitimate constitutional question and that is eligibility to run for public office and serve the community. It has bipartisan support. Most of the legislators are liberal about the criteria for running, they want to promote democracy and so they view it in the public interest to make it not so difficult to run,” said House leadership spokesman Charles Reyes Jr.

Passing a budget is not as simple, he maintained.

“The budget is a very tiresome, contentious issue whereby different political factions, different parties, and different government agencies are trying to get their share of funds. Inherently, you have conflict,” Reyes said.

“In the House, you have 18 different members from different political parties. You have the same situation in the Senate and you also have to get agreement between the House and the Senate. On top of that, the governor has his own priorities as far as funding is concerned. Clearly, that is not the same as a simple constitutional question where there’s no controversy, where there is no competition for resources,” he added.

The House has adopted a resolution identifying $206.5 million in available resources for FY 2006. However, the House has yet to draft a complementary bill that specifies how the lump sum would be divided among government agencies.

This task falls on the House Ways and Means committee, headed by Rep. Norman S. Palacios.

House Resolution 14-3 rejects the Babauta administration’s $225.8 million budget submission. It omits nearly $20 million in revenue enhancement measures that were included in the administration’s budget package. Such measures include a poker fee licensure fee increase of $6,000, suspension of Tobacco Control and Tobacco Settlement Funds, and diversion of local poker funds to the General Fund.

Without these, the government would only generate $206 million in view of projected reduced revenues from the garment industry, the administration had said.