Rep. Blas Jonathan Attao gestures as he talks about the revised fiscal year 2023 budget during a House session on Monday.
THE House of Representatives on Monday unanimously adopted House Concurrent Resolution 23-1 to accept Gov. Arnold I. Palacios’s proposal to revise the fiscal year 2023 budget.
The revised budget would no longer include American Rescue Plan Act funds and would reduce the executive branch’s working hours to 72. However, the revised budget increased to $121.6 million from $109.7 million the projected local revenue available for appropriation.
In a March 8, 2023, letter to lawmakers, the governor also requested “up to 50% reprogramming authority for the total funds appropriated to the departments, agencies, and offices of the executive branch.”
He added, “Although my administration will exert every effort to stay within our means and the 25% reprogramming authority already provided in the Planning and Budgeting Act, we may need expanded flexibility to address critical issues as they arise for the remainder of the fiscal year.”
Following the House session on Monday, the Ways and Means Committee convened at 3 p.m. to begin its deliberation on the revised FY 2023 budget.
According to House Concurrent Resolution 23-1, the Legislature is urging the governor “to submit a report as soon as possible setting forth any amendments or changes to the budget, including actual revenues and expenditures to date for fiscal year 2022, any policy changes proposed since the March 8, 2023, letter submittal of the Fiscal Year 2023 amended budget, and other significant factors affecting the budget for fiscal year 2023.”
The estimated gross budgetary resources for FY 2023 as indicated in the revised budget proposal amount to $164.19 million.
Of this amount, $48 million is for earmarks and debt payments, leaving a total of $116.19 million for government appropriation and $5.4 million for the Department of Public Lands.
The Ways and Means vice chairman, Rep. Blas Jonathan Attao, said their goal is to pass a revised FY 2023 budget on or before April 1.
He said they must also anticipate whatever concerns the Senate may have so that they can address them in the House, and get the revised budget “smoothly” passed in the Senate.
For his part, Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez said he may schedule a House session for Friday or Saturday, depending on how soon the Ways and Means committee can complete its work on the revised budget.
