The long and short of it is that, yes, the Governor has the authority to cut the budgetary allotments of other branches of government. However, such cuts have to be proportionately applied to all branches, departments and agencies.<\/p>\n
Thus ruled the Attorney General\u2019s Office yesterday on the question whether the Governor has the constitutional authority to cut the third and fourth quarter allotments of the Executive, Legislature, Judiciary, and all other governmental agencies. <\/p>\n
However, Attorney General Robert Torres pointed out that the Planning and Budget Act of 1983 stipulates that the Governor\u2019s authority to reduce allotments requires such cuts to be proportionate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn other words, it [budget cut] has to apply to everyone and the Governor cannot discriminate between branches, instrumentalities and autonomous agencies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In line with this, Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente said the Babauta administration would correct its earlier decision to exempt the Public School System from the budget cuts, which would result in a lower 6.57-percent cut across all government branches and agencies. <\/p>\n
The administration\u2019s previous position\u2014cutting everyone\u2019s budgetary allotments except for the PSS\u2014would have forced all the other agencies to absorb a higher reduction of 8.02 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have, in fact, shown that the Governor does have the authority to cut even the budget of the Legislative and the Judicial Branches. It\u2019s also clear to us that the cuts have to be done proportionately and I would agree that, if we are to cut proportionately, the cuts on all agencies and branches would probably be lesser. I believe that we will have to correct that by giving back the cuts that were made to those agencies and other branch of the government,\u201d Benavente said. <\/p>\n
The Lt. Governor appealed, however, to the Legislature and the Judiciary that, despite the AGO\u2019s ruling on the matter, they support Gov. Juan N. Babauta\u2019s position that the Public School System should be spared from the budget cuts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that they will see it fit to reprogram the money back from whatever they will get from the cuts being made on the PSS budget, so that PSS may be able to continue at this present level,\u201d Benavente said. \u201cI hope they also see the importance of sparing the PSS from the cuts. Basically, I am offering them a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Benavente, in his capacity as acting Governor, who issued a March 6 memorandum informing the Legislature that he will direct the Office of Management and Budget to implement the proportionate reduction in the budgetary allotments, except for the PSS. At that time, Babauta was in Washington D.C. <\/p>\n
CNMI Supreme Court Chief Justice Miguel S. Demapan had complained to Babauta about the judiciary\u2019s budget cut, pointing out that, not only did they get a higher cut of 8.4 percent\u2014as opposed to the 8.02 percent cut among other branches and agencies\u2014but that the cuts themselves represent an unlawful intrusion into the affairs of the third branch and a violation of the separation of powers doctrine.<\/p>\n
Demapan did concede, however, that, in recognition of the dire financial straits facing the CNMI, the judiciary would be happy with a 6.5-percent cut, which would be the judiciary\u2019s proportional share of the total projected reduction.<\/p>\n
In its 11-page ruling, the AGO cited Public Law 3-68, the Planning and Budget Act of 1983, particularly Section 7204, which says that \u201cdecreases in estimated revenues may be absorbed proportionately by all branches, offices, departments and agencies of the Commonwealth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torres said that Section 7604 (e) of the same law also provides that in the case of a $200,000 or 3-percent decrease in revenues, the reduction shall be offset against the reserve, or shall be dealt with by the Governor in accordance with procedures, if the Governor deems such action necessary to prevent a deficit budget for the fiscal year.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The Governor\u2019s] authority to reduce budgetary allotment is derived from the Planning and Budget Act, 1 CMC Section 7604 and 7204. That statute plainly states that the allotment reductions apply to all branches, offices, departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the Commonwealth, which are subject to appropriations. By using broad and inclusive language\u2026the legislature was indicating that [the Governor\u2019s] authority to reduce budgetary allotments is not limited to merely executive branch agencies but also to the other two branches of the government,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The long and short of it is that, yes, the Governor has the authority to cut the budgetary allotments of other branches of government. However, such cuts have to be proportionately applied to all branches, departments and agencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63477","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\/63477","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=63477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}