THE bicameral conference committee will convene at 11 a.m. today, Tuesday, April 18, to draft a version of the revised fiscal year 2023 budget measure acceptable to both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez and Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero assigned members to the conference committee following the House rejection of House Bill 23-31 as amended by the Senate.
The measure would amend Public Law 22-22 or the government’s FY 2023 budget.
The House conferees are Ways and Means Committee Chairman Ralph N. Yumul, Reps. Blas Jonathan Attao, John Paul Sablan and Marissa Flores. Their Senate counterparts are Fiscal Affairs Committee Chairman and Senate Vice President Donald Manglona, Senate Floor Leader Corina Magofna, Sens. Karl King Nabors and Jude U. Hofschneider.
The version of the bill passed by the Senate last week increases to $116.1 million from $109.7 million the revenue projection available for appropriation and includes a spreadsheet that represents the $17.6 million in ARPA funds that the Torres administration had allotted for 20% of the government employees’ salaries in the first quarter of the fiscal year.
Besides the additional funds for the Department of Commerce, the Senate version of the revised FY2023 budget also allotted an additional $225,000 each for Tinian and Rota, on top of the $7.5 million that each will get from the general fund.
House Floor Leader Edwin Propst moved to reject the Senate version on Friday. Rep. Blas Jonathan Attao seconded the motion, saying he wants the House members to understand why the Senate added $225,000 to the budgets of Tinian and Rota “on top of what was already given” to the two islands.
Attao noted that the House version slashed the budget of the Saipan Mayor’s Office by $780,000.
“It is very important that we get into conference committee so we can understand the position of the Senate,” Attao said.
All the 17 House members from Saipan voted to reject the Senate version of H.B. 23-31. Rep. Malcolm Omar was excused. Rep. Julie Ogo of Rota and Rep. Patrick San Nicolas of Tinian voted in favor of the Senate version.
Ogo said she hopes the House and Senate conferees will still consider providing more funds to Rota.
San Nicolas said he respects Attao’s concern but he, too, hopes that Tinian will receive additional funding.
Asked for comment on Attao’s concern, Senate Vice President Manglona said on Monday that “the Senate addressed the operational needs for the first and second senatorial districts while also allocating funds for the executive branch operations.”
“We did not provide additional funds for the mayor of Saipan because the mayor has access to municipal ARPA funds, which the central government has no access to,” he said.
According to the revised FY 2023 budget, the Palacios-Apatang administration will implement austerity measures on April 24. These include the reduction of executive branch work hours to 72 hours from 80 hours.
