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PSS gets $54M from House
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Posted on Sep 29 2005
The Public School System got more than what it expected after the House of Representatives passed yesterday a bill giving the agency not its requested amount of $50 million but $54 million.
House lawmakers unanimously passed House Bill 14-371, which now provides $54 million for the PSS. The school system is currently budgeted at $37.2 million.
This bill is one of the urgent bills that the Senate will be acting on during its emergency session today. If no changes are made by the Senate, the bill will go to the governor for signing.
The additional $4 million came even as House Joint Resolution 15-54 remains pending at the House Ways and Means Committee.
Congressman and independent gubernatorial candidate Heinz S. Hofschneider introduced on Sept. 14 House Resolution 14-44 to authorize the PSS “to incur public debt of up to $54 million for the financing of the new schools, additional classrooms and other related school capital improvement projects for 2005 to 2012.”
The Attorney General’s Office, in a position paper that it distributed during the session yesterday, opposed the resolution, saying it “raises several legal and constitutional issues.”
Acting Deputy AG Clyde Lemons Jr. said that Article 10 section 4 of the CNMI Constitution provides that public indebtedness may not be authorized in excess of 10 percent of the aggregate assessed valuation of the real property within the CNMI.
Further, Lemons said that the Constitution provides that the Commonwealth Development Authority is the governmental entity charged with the authority to borrow money.
Lemons also noted that the resolution does not indicate it was reviewed for legal sufficiency by the House legal counsel.
Meantime, the passage of the PSS budget means that the other CNMI government departments and offices are left with $152 million out of the $206 million in identified resources for fiscal year 2006.
House Bill 14-371 is $16.8 million more than the PSS current budget.
