By Zaldy Dandan – Variety Editor
Staring so hard at the bark you forgot there’s a forest
A SENATE bill proposes stricter rules on lawmakers’ allowances. Similar legislation was introduced in 2021 and passed by the House of Representatives, but the Senate did not act on it.
Under the FY 2026 budget bill passed by the Senate in September, House members each earn $38,485 annually, while senators receive about $37,402 each. These are “peanuts” compared to the salaries of other government officials whose duties are not, one may say, as demanding or significant as those of legislators.
To be sure, each lawmaker is also entitled to $118,793 in annual allocations to fund their offices and staff. In addition, House and Senate leadership each receive $200,000.
According to the FY 2026 budget bill, total funding for the legislative branch amounts to $7 million, with $2.78 million allocated for personnel and $4 million for operations. The Legislature’s budget includes funding for utilities, the Legislative Bureau, and the Youth Congress.
Now compare that to the judiciary’s $6.1 million budget, of which $5.67 million is for personnel, $211,243 for operations, and $300,000 for utilities. Or consider the executive branch, whose funding includes more than $46.5 million for the offices of the governor and lt. governor as well as the various executive departments.
Incidentally, the budgets for the municipalities of Rota and Tinian exceed $8 million each. (Saipan and the Northern Islands receive $3.9 million.)
And yet it is usually the annual funding for lawmakers that seems to infuriate the “fiscal conservatives” among us. Why? Mainly because we also know that each of the nine senators can spend up to $5,000 of their office funds as an “allowance” to “defray costs of food, lodging, and other expenses incurred while attending official legislative business.” In the House of Representatives, only the Rota and Tinian members may use the full $5,000 for official legislative business on Saipan or within their respective districts. Saipan representatives may use only $2,500 for costs incurred while attending legislative business on Saipan.
Senate Bill 24-99, in any case, proposes reasonable restrictions on these allowances. Lawmakers should pass it, and the governor should sign it into law.
And yet, all things considered, it would barely touch the primary cause of the government’s current financial woes: it continues to spend more than it can collect from a weak economy.
We should also be worried — perhaps even more so — about the funding levels provided to other government entities that are duplicative, many of which have become virtual dumping grounds for political hires. It bears repeating that the 2020 Fiscal Response Summit identified departments, agencies, offices, activities, and programs that could be abolished or consolidated to save the government millions of dollars each year. But no one wants to talk about that.
Apparently, we are far more concerned about the $5,000–$2,500 allowance that legislators are legally permitted to spend.
In other words, we’ve narrowed our focus and lost sight of the whole.
Incidentally
WE should also remind ourselves that although lawmakers’ primary duty is to make laws, many of their constituents demand more — often a lot more — from their legislators, who are expected to be available 24/7.
Lawmakers (and other politicians seeking office) must attend weddings, christenings, graduations, birthday parties, and funerals. They provide picnic tables, canopies, and other forms of assistance to families, including those in need and especially those who are sick. They make donations to schools, students, sports events, village fiestas, and even constituents who need help paying CUC and other bills. They conduct cleanups and renovate or repair parks, basketball courts, and bus shelters. Lawmakers often become gofers for constituents who need help finding a job or dealing with a nonresponsive government bureaucracy.
If we want to cut lawmakers’ budgets, we should also consider reducing our dependence on their taxpayer-funded public service.
Zaldy Dandan is the recipient of the NMI Society of Professional Journalists’ Best in Editorial Writing Award and the NMI Humanities Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism. His four books are available on amazon.com/.
