Gov. Eloy S. Inos submitted a budget proposal of $145.8 million to the Legislature late Wednesday night to beat the April 1 deadline mandated by the Constitution.<\/p>\n
The budget represents an increase of $11.5 million, or 8.55 percent, from the budget of the previous fiscal year, Inos said in a letter to House Speaker Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero (R-Saipan) and Senate President Victor B. Hocog (Ind-Rota).<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter adjusting for debt service appropriations, earmarked funds, and other legal obligations, the net resources available for general appropriations is $145,820,375,\u201d Inos said.<\/p>\n
The budget was derived from the gross budgetary resources reported by the Secretary of Finance for fiscal year 2016 at $183.55 million.<\/p>\n
Of that amount, 37 percent ($68 million) came from business gross revenue tax, while 21 percent ($38 million) came from income taxes.<\/p>\n
Excise taxes contributed 18 percent ($32.4 million) of the gross budget, while \u201cother taxes\u201d pitched in 13 percent ($24.6 million).<\/p>\n
Licenses and fees contributed 7 percent ($13.3 million), while charges for services and other revenue contributed 4 percent ($7.2 million) combined.<\/p>\n
The government was earlier expected to submit a lower budget of $134 million.<\/p>\n
Rep. Antonio Sablan (Ind-Saipan), chairman of the Committee Ways and Means that will handle the budget hearings, said the $145.8 million budget was \u201creasonable.\u201d He said he would have been \u201cconcerned\u201d if the budget was pegged at $137 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been economic activities out there. I see a lot of people working out there,\u201d Sablan said, adding that more enforcement of tax collections should also be looked at.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad to see the numbers, which are more realistic,\u201d Sablan.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) added that $145.8 million is \u201cbetter than $134 million.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hard work is expected to now begin for lawmakers, with impending hearings on the individual budget appropriations for the different government agencies.<\/p>\n
Breakdown<\/strong><\/p>\n According to the governor\u2019s proposed spending plan, there will be an increased allocation toward the Settlement Trust by $3 million, boosting the $27 million allotted to the fund to $30 million. This will cover the minimum annual payment sufficient to enable the Fund to pay 75 percent of class members\u2019 full benefits.<\/p>\n The remaining 25 percent of class members\u2019 full benefits is earmarked as a separate contribution to the Settlement Fund pursuant to Public Laws 18-30 and Public Law 18-56.<\/p>\n The Public School System will get 25 percent of general fund revenues, $36.45 million, as mandated by a recently enacted legislative initiative.<\/p>\n Out of the sum, $29.13 million is for current actual salaries for PSS and those under the Board of Education. The PSS budget also allocates $3.6 million for payment of current and outstanding utilities, and $3.1 million for all schools\u2019 deferred facilities maintenance.<\/p>\n The newly created Department of Fire and EMS will get an increase of $687,000 in its budget, from $2.569 million in fiscal year 2015 to $3.3 million for fiscal 2016.<\/p>\n For the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., the budget proposal included the continued contribution of $2 million to help defray the cost of clinical services for indigents.<\/p>\n The Northern Marianas College is proposed to get an allocation of $4.475 million for fiscal 2016.<\/p>\n A budget of $1.7 million is being proposed for the CNMI Department of Labor from the Commonwealth workers\u2019 fee funds.<\/p>\n The budget plan allocates $12.7 million for utilities to defray utility consumption charges for the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches. It recommends an increase of budget allocation for utilities in the future.<\/p>\n The municipalities of Tinian and Rota will receive equal allocation for utilities payment of $465,000 each.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gov. Eloy S. Inos submitted a budget proposal of $145.8 million to the Legislature late…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,4],"tags":[20,508,1042,244],"class_list":["post-195597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","category-local-news","tag-budget","tag-fy","tag-public-law-18-56","tag-utility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}