Gov. Ralph DLG Torres expects government resources to exceed the $203 million gross budgetary resources projected in his budget submission last month.<\/p>\n
After adjustments, some $127.8 million is available for appropriations by the Legislature.<\/p>\n
Torres on Thursday said he was \u201coptimistic\u201d and is seeking clarification from the Department of Finance and its Division of Tax and Revenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I believe our projections as of last month exceeded what was projected for the\u201d budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo [if] this trend continues most definitely we would be exceeding the $203 budget,\u201d he said, adding that he \u201cdefinitely\u201d thinks they might see a higher budget projection come supplemental figures this July.<\/p>\n
Of the $203 million budget resources some $74.8 million were identified from project business gross tax revenue and another $41.8 million from income taxes, and $35.5 from excises taxes, among other taxes and revenue sources.<\/p>\n
Torres noted that the Saipan casino, Best Sunshine International, Ltd. was paying an average of $3 million to $4 million in taxes per month, and is trying to get the \u201cexact number on their taxes\u201d over the last year.<\/p>\n
Torres said if numbers do exceed the proposed budget, he would identify those funds and have the legislature be allowed to appropriate them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a governor, I actually spoke to the attorney general regarding that matter. So if there is excess, the governor doesn\u2019t just arbitrarily take it and use it for whatever I decide. Those funds should be appropriated by the legislature. But until I identify that as over the budget\u2014I need to identify it first before that budget is distributed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In budget submission to the Legislature, Torres, among others, laid out a plan to increase salaries of law enforcement and first responders in three separate phases starting from salaries less than $25,000, to salaries in excess of $25,000, and for those not included in the prior phases.<\/p>\n
Torres\u2019 proposal provides funding for the first two phases, and budgets \u201ca cumulative total in excess of $3.5 million for the salary adjustments of these law enforcement,\u201d including new positions to support anticipated increase in tourism activities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres expects government resources to exceed the $203 million gross budgetary resources…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[1707,20,56],"class_list":["post-227303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-best-sunshine-international","tag-budget","tag-business-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227303","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=227303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}