{"id":376696,"date":"2022-09-28T06:06:33","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T20:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=376696"},"modified":"2022-09-28T06:06:33","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T20:06:33","slug":"house-budget-bill-irresponsible-borders-on-negligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/house-budget-bill-irresponsible-borders-on-negligence\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018House budget bill irresponsible, borders on negligence\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Edwin P. Aldan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tinian Mayor Edwin P. Aldan said Friday that essentially the House of Representatives\u2019 version of the budget bill for the government\u2019s operations in Fiscal Year 2023 as it pertains to Tinian is irresponsible and borders on negligence.<\/p>\n

Speaking during a budget hearing held in the Tinian courthouse, Aldan said the House bill version terminates current Tinian municipality employees and reduces the municipality\u2019s operations to a level that will definitely affect safety of the people and the delivery of the essential public services.<\/p>\n

Aldan said there are only seven days from Friday from the end of fiscal year and that tremendous pressure\u00a0 will be placed on the legislature to pass a budget\u00a0 on time to prevent a partial government shutdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to ask the Senate to rise above the politics and prioritize continuing employment of the people to a level where we can effectively deliver public services,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last Aug. 27, the House passed a budget bill to appropriate $109.7 million out of $150.4 million in total budgetary resources, and $52.6 million from the American Rescue Plan Act funds, for government operations in FY\u00a0 2023.<\/p>\n

With the backing of their legal counsel Joe Bermudes\u2019 opinion, stating, among other things, that it is only the governor who has the authority to allocate or expend ARPA funds, the Senate on Friday unanimously passed their version of a budget bill.<\/p>\n

Speaking before the Senate voted to pass their version of the budget, Aldan said as a former member of the Legislature, he truly understands the politics behind the formulation and passing of the budget during an election year.<\/p>\n

However, Aldan said, there should never be any reason for political differences to cause the termination and financial hardship of current government employees.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, he said, this is exactly what the House\u2019s version of the budget is.<\/p>\n

The mayor said that, last Sept. 16, the House Ways and Means Committee had a press conference justifying their budget.<\/p>\n

He said in that press conference, the House majority said that their budget will not have an effect on existing employees of Tinian and Rota.<\/p>\n

Aldan said the House majority members continue to defend the budget to the media insisting that they did their due diligence in formulating this budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the mayor of Tinian, I can state with absolute certainty that this is not correct,\u201d said the mayor as he cited two examples to prove that the House did not do their due diligence.<\/p>\n

He said first, the House version gives the Department of Commerce three full time employees, but the Tinian Commerce has four FTEs since the beginning of FY 2022.<\/p>\n

Aldan said under the House\u2019s version, those civil service employees will be terminated on Oct. 1st.<\/p>\n

He said second, the House version of the budget provides\u00a0 the Tinian Mayor\u2019s Office 140 FTEs.<\/p>\n

He said, however, the mayor\u2019s office has 123 filled FTEs if the Legislature would pass the House version.<\/p>\n

Aldan said it is clear\u00a0 that the House did not do due diligence as it pertains to Tinian\u2019s current employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the House version is passed, it will have dire consequences to many Tinian government employees\u00a0 and their families, which is totally unacceptable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The mayor also noted that the House\u2019s version reduced the Tinian Department of Public Safety budget by nearly $600,000 or 35%.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, I can\u2019t comprehend how such a drastic cut to the most\u00a0 essential department makes any sense,\u201d Aldan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tinian Mayor Edwin P. Aldan said Friday that essentially the House of Representatives\u2019 version of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":376697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376696","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}