THE House Ways and Means Committee will come up with its own spending plan for the American Rescue Plan Act funds for fiscal year 2022.
The CNMI will receive $481,876,521 in Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds that the U.S. Congress appropriated in the ARPA.
On Friday and Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee conducted budget hearings for the Rota and Tinian municipal governments.
The committee chairman, Rep. Donald Manglona, said they plan to hold similar budget hearings for departments, agencies and other government activities starting this week.
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres submitted his FY 2021 budget proposal to the Legislature on April 1, 2021. A balanced budget must be enacted into law before Oct. 1, 2021 to prevent a partial government shutdown.
In an interview on Thursday, Manglona said once all their budget hearings are done, his committee will adopt a resolution proposing an ARPA spending plan based on the outcome of the budget hearings.
Manglona said the House leadership bloc will push their ARPA spending plan in case House Bill 22-33 does not pass the Senate.
The measure, which he authored, would allow the Legislature to appropriate ARPA funds, and calls for “transparency and accountability” in spending the federal monies.
The House vote on the bill, however, was 10 in favor and 10 against, but Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez cited a House rule that allowed him to vote twice to “break the tie.”
When asked for his legal opinion by the House minority bloc, Attorney General Edward Manibusan said: “It is my opinion that the tie-breaker rule in the House rules allowing the Speaker to vote twice in the event of a tie contravenes” the CNMI Constitution’s Article II Section 5(c) which states: ‘The legislature may not enact a law except by bill and no bill may be enacted without the approval of at least a majority of the votes cast in each house of legislature.’”
As for the budget hearings on Rota and Tinian, Manglona said the leaders of both islands are “okay” with the governor’s proposed budgets for their respective municipalities.
But he said the mayors of both municipalities also requested additional ARPA funding for either a purchase of new equipment or an upgrade of their existing equipment. They are also asking for the restoration of full-time employee slots that were vacant in FYs 2020 and 2021.
Donald Manglona
