The budget proposal calls for the application of austerity measures such as the re-imposition of austerity Fridays or the forced closure of public offices every other Friday that was done in FY 2007; the reduction of government work hour everyday which equates to a reduction in pay by 12.5 percent; and the nonpayment of legal holidays throughout FY 2011.
The governor said these austerity measures will ease the liquidity problem of the government, which was unable to pay thousands of its employees on payday last Friday.
“They got to be responsible. Responsible means living with the time. [We] cannot be living against time. We have a financial challenge. All of us got to get together in order to weather this financial crisis,” Fitial told reporters in an interview yesterday.
“I am going to use my constitutional power if I need to. But I don’t need to resort to that because we have the legislative branch of government that we should be working with to solve this financial crisis,” he added. “There’s no money.”
Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos, in his capacity as acting governor, signed Public Law 17-6 last Thursday, empowering the governor to reprogram up to $10 million of funds from independent programs and agencies, except those that may conflict with federal laws, for payroll.
The money should cover the government’s three biweekly payrolls, including that of June 18.
The Commonwealth Development Authority and the Marianas Public Lands Trust were tapped for the latest payroll.
The governor said the administration is still waiting for the Department of Finance’s report for the July collections to determine if there’s a need to readjust previous projections for FY 2011.
“We should be getting revenue collections in July. Once we get them, we would be able to project effectively what the financial requirement would be for this coming fiscal year. Let’s wait for the revenue in July. We’re hoping that the July collection would be sufficient,” he added.
The CNMI government must pass a budget before the next fiscal year begins under the mandate of the newly ratified constitutional amendment which forces the shutdown of its operations without new appropriations.
The Legislature had created a budget conference committee to work on the budget.
