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<\/a>\nThe House adopted the bill yesterday with 18 \u201cyes\u201d votes against two \u201cno\u201d votes. The Senate adopted it unanimously, with all nine members voting yes.<\/p>\n
Inos has until next Wednesday, Sept. 30, the close of the fiscal year, to sign the budget into law.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, the Executive Branch\u2014including the Office of Management and Budget, the special assistant for administration, and the Office of the Attorney General\u2014began examining the compromise budget bill.<\/p>\n
The House and Senate had been in a deadlock for most of the three weeks since budget talks began on Sept. 3 but emerged from a session on Tuesday with a compromise.<\/p>\n
Inos, though, could veto the bill, but Senate President Victor Hocog (Ind-Rota) said he does not think the governor will do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not see the governor veto[ing] the budget because there is too much at stake,\u201d said Hocog after senators approved the compromise bill. He noted payments to the settlement trust, the Retirement Fund, and the 25 percent allocation of general funds for the Public School System.<\/p>\n
Still, some red flags have been raised. Concerns that were brought up in a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday remain part of the proposed budget. For one, administration officials that did a preliminary review of the budget think the Legislature\u2019s 5-percent salary increase for law enforcement personnel appears to be not clearly funded, and would force departments to pull from existing funds to support the increase.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a concern that benefits outlined for some Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. employees aren\u2019t funded.<\/p>\n
The three members representing the House on the conference committee were grilled over a compromise $300,000 leadership account that the Senate had wanted, and got. The House was proposing a $179,387 account. The Senate pushed for, and got, a 67-percent increase.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you hear terms like \u2018this is a complete package,\u2019 you know you have some difficulty ahead of you,\u201d said Rep. Antonio Sablan (Ind-Saipan), who led the budget talks as conference chairman.<\/p>\n
Sablan was speaking to some of the concerns from members from the House minority over compromises in the budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur backs were up against the wall,\u201d said Rep. Angel Demapan (R-Saipan), a budget conferee.<\/p>\n
Demapan said the \u201cbottom line was avoid a government shutdown\u201d and \u201csafeguarding the livelihood of our people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to make the decision,\u201d Demapan said, urging House representatives to no longer delay the passage of the budget bill. He said the $145 million budget was a \u201cprojection we have to help the government realize\u2026and help exceed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The main tussle with the budget talks were the allocation of Marianas Visitors Authority earmarks amounting to about $2.5 million. The Senate\u2019s original proposal to use some Inos-directed earmarks drew the ire of Inos, who earlier told reporters this was an invasion of MVA funds.<\/p>\n
When asked if he still thought this way, Inos said it depends on how they \u201ccut it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, the Senate and House have agreed to \u201cmodify\u201d MVA\u2019s programs budget via their legislative authority, rather than amending earmarks in the Senate\u2019s first proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the funds remain in the MVA earmarked account,\u201d Inos said. \u201cThey are just instructing that MVA fund certain projects with the MVA budget and not by taking money away and not replenishing it, or reducing the earmark. I think it\u2019s more of a legal issue. I defer to the AG\u2019s office.\u201d<\/p>\n
MVA managing director Perry Tenorio and MVA chair Marian Aldan Pierce and two other board members met with Inos yesterday morning to air their concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A $145-million budget bill for next fiscal year has left the Legislature and now awaits…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":211090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[20,1414,65,212],"class_list":["post-211089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-budget","tag-executive-branch","tag-house","tag-mva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211089","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}