{"id":397436,"date":"2023-08-09T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=397436"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"115-4M-budget-for-FY-24-pre-filed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/115-4M-budget-for-FY-24-pre-filed\/","title":{"rendered":"$115.4M budget for FY\u201924 pre-filed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rep. Ralph N. Yumul (Ind-Saipan) pre-filed Monday a bill that proposes a $115.4-million budget for the CNMI government for fiscal year 2024, as Gov. Arnold I. Palacios had submitted.<\/p>\n

Under Yumul\u2019s House Bill 23-66, or the Appropriations and Budget Authority Act of 2024, the governor shall have up to 50% reprogramming authority for the departments, agencies, and offices of the Executive Branch.<\/p>\n

That reprogramming authority, however, shall not extend to the funds appropriated to the Legislature or Judiciary as well as funds appropriated by the legislative delegations.<\/p>\n

In response to Saipan Tribune<\/em>\u2019s inquiry yesterday, Yumul, who chairs the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, said the main points are that they took out $2,426,394 from vacant positions and distributed $731,392 to the Health Network Program (formerly the CNMI Medical Referral Program), an additional $1 million to the Northern Marianas College, and $695,002 to fund some staff of the Mayor of Tinian.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand many departments and agencies asked for additional funding. But we feel this was our priorities as far as distribution of little funds we had,\u201d Yumul said.<\/p>\n

He said the full House will act on his budget bill during a regular session tomorrow, Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Senate\u2019s Fiscal Affairs Committee has yet to finalize its version of the budget.<\/p>\n

Yumul said a standalone bill that is projected to generate revenues will be introduced after the budget.<\/p>\n

Pursuant to a House concurrent resolution, the total identified gross budgetary resources for fiscal year 2024 is $172.56 million. After adjustment\u2014deducting debt service obligations, earmarked funds, and other obligations such as the annual payments due the Settlement Fund in the amount of $34 million\u2014a total of $115.4 million is available for appropriation.<\/p>\n

Including Department of Public Lands\u2019 appropriated $4.96 million, the grand total is $120.36 million.<\/p>\n

Under the legislation, all fees assessed and collected that directly relate to marriage licenses are increased by 100%.<\/p>\n

The leadership account of each house in the Legislature shall be $100,000.<\/p>\n

The Judiciary is appropriated $6.4 million; the Legislature, $6.9 million; the Office of the Governor, $801,690; Office of the Lt. Gov. $561,449; and other offices of the governor and lieutenant governor, $11.4 million.<\/p>\n

The appropriations are the following:<\/p>\n

Department of Commerce, $1.5 million;<\/p>\n

Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, $1.8 million;<\/p>\n

Department of Corrections, $4.4 million;<\/p>\n

Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services, $5.0 million;<\/p>\n

Department of Finance, $7.5 million;<\/p>\n

Department of Labor, $865,485;<\/p>\n

Department of Lands and Natural Resources, $2.1 million;<\/p>\n

Department of Public Safety, $6.6 million;<\/p>\n

Department of Public Works, $2.8 million;<\/p>\n

Rota, $7.7 million;<\/p>\n

Tinian, $4.7 million;<\/p>\n

Saipan and Northern Islands, $1.3 million;<\/p>\n

Boards and commissions, $1.6 million;<\/p>\n

Independent programs, $7 million;<\/p>\n

Other programs (transfers to agencies), $33.7 million<\/p>\n


Ralph Yumul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rep. Ralph N. Yumul (Ind-Saipan) pre-filed Monday a bill that proposes a $115.4-million budget for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397436","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}