By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

THERE is no need for the Legislature to further reduce the judiciary’s original appropriation for fiscal year 2007 because its failure to receive its allotments during the first six months of the current fiscal year is tantamount to an automatic budget cut, a court official said.
Perry Taitano, administrator of courts, wrote to Speaker Mark Forbes in response to Public Auditor Doris Brooks’ letter, questioning the Legislature’s move to restore the original funding level for the judiciary.
Senators have voted to delete the provision in the governor’s revised budget measure, Bill 74, authorizing a 2.5 percent funding cut for the judiciary as also proposed for all other departments and agencies.
Brooks disagreed with the Legislature’s decision to restore the proposed reduction to the courts of Guam.
“I recognize that the judiciary is the third and coequal branch of government. However, every branch, every agency should contribute to the reductions in their appropriations,” Brooks stated in a letter to Forbes, R-Sinajana.
In response, Taitano said the judiciary did not receive $2.5 million scheduled allotments during the first six months, which he said “amounts to an effective reduction of nearly 17 percent of the judiciary’s fiscal year 2007 budget.”
Taitano also recalled that in his testimony at the budget hearing, Chief Justice Philip Carbullido reminded senators that the judiciary’s budget request for fiscal year 2007 was already cut by $90,000.