Except for Sen. Jovita M. Taimanao’s floor amendments, no lengthy discussion was made before the Senate unanimously approved its substitute for House Bill 17-215, the $102 million appropriation measure for FY 2012.
Education Commissioner Rita A. Sablan and Northern Marianas College President Sharon Hart, who were in the gallery, thanked the senators for providing more funding to education.
The House proposal of $4.2 million for the entire Legislature was reduced by the Senate to $2.9 million as a result of “zeroing out” the leadership accounts and discretionary funds.
The Senate bill gave PSS and NMC additional $1 million each.
The House members’ salary of $986,037 and the senators’ $441,359 were not changed while funding for the Legislative Bureau was raised from $1 million to $1.4 million.
The Senate’s substitute bill also listed among “outside sources” the $150 fee that will be collected by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from CW transitional workers.
Taimanao’s floor amendment allots $2 million of these monies to PSS and NMC.
The PSS budget, which the House set at $27.9 million, is now $30.2 million.
PSS said it needs at least $31 million.
The NMC budget went up from $4 million, as proposed by the House, to $5.2 million under the Senate version.
The appropriation for Marianas Visitors Authority went down from $5 million to $4.5 million, $120,000 of which “shall be expended to subsidize the charter flights from Japan to Rota.”
The Senate also reduced the office of the governor’s budget from $720,779 to $631,938 and the lt. governor’s from $562,287 to $475,990. The total budget for other offices of the governor was reduced from $6.1 million to $5 million.
Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos believes the FY 2012 budget will end up with the bicameral conference committee.
Lawmakers should “try to hash it out in conference and send it over and we will take a look at it,” he said.
Inos said the administration has been working with the lawmakers regarding the budget to avoid another government shutdown.
A new budget must be passed before Oct. 1.
