WITH six days left in the current fiscal year, House Bill 23-115 or the Appropriations and Budget Act of 2025 as amended by the Senate now goes to Gov. Arnold I. Palacios after the House of Representatives passed it by an 18-1 vote on Tuesday.
Rep. Marissa Flores cast the lone dissenting vote on the bill that would appropriate $117 million for government operations and personnel in FY 2025. A new fiscal year budget must be enacted by Oct. 1, 2024 to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Rep. Joseph Flores was excused from the session on Tuesday.
On Wednesday last week, the Senate made significant amendments to H.B. 23-115 before unanimously passing the spending bill.
These changes included a proposal to remit the Department of Public Lands’ $5.5 million to the Marianas Public Land Trust; prohibit government exempted service contract employees from receiving a pay raise of more than 10%; and allow the Supreme Court chief justice and Superior Court presiding judge to use any available outside source funds, including revolving funds, to restore the reduced work hours of the judicial branch personnel.
The Senate version of the budget bill also restores the judiciary’s authority to use funds for pro tempore chief justices and judges.
Prior to the House passage of the spending measure, Flores raised a concern regarding the additional funding for the judiciary. The House version of the budget bill proposed to remit the justice center fund to the Second Senatorial District (Tinian) and the Department of Public Safety. The Senate version, however, removed the provision from the bill.
In her remarks, Rep. Marissa Flores said the justice center fund should go to DPS.
She said, “It’s due time that they [the judiciary] also figure out ways to support their extravagance of a courthouse [on Tinian] because there is money that can be used [for] public safety because everybody deserves to feel safe.”
She added, “I really hope and sincerely pray that the courts figure out a way to support their justice center fund because I will work and I will advocate that the fund that was meant to be for DPS should be given back to DPS. I want to make that very clear because the people deserve to be safe. And DPS has suffered for 15 years with no funds because this was diverted over to support this extravagant building,” she said.
