MVarietyNews.com

GOVERNOR Benigno R. Fitial says his administration is now preparing the fiscal year 2011 budget which could cut to 64 hours the 80-hour biweekly payroll of government employees.

The governor said he’s confident that the incoming 17th Legislature, which will be dominated by his Covenant Party, will pass the budget with the austerity holidays.

“We need it [austerity holidays]. And if they [the Republican Legislature] didn’t give it to us, we will get it in the next Legislature. I am going to be working very closely with the 17th Legislature to make sure that what we need is what we get,” he told the Variety in an interview.

The House passed a $150.5 million budget for FY 2010, which began on Oct. 1, 2009, without provisions for work-hour cuts.

The Senate amended the bill to include mandatory work-hour cuts which the House rejected.

Rep. Ray N. Yumul, R-Saipan and the outgoing House Committee on Ways and Means chairman, said the Senate appears not interested to meet with the House regarding the budget.

He believes that no action would be taken on the FY 2010 budget when the 16th Legislature ends its term next month.

The governor said he asked Lt. Gov. Eloy Inos to deal with the budget issue.

“For FY 2011, we’re going to start that process. Eloy is heading that. He already advised the cabinet to better start working on their budgets,” he said.

The cash-strapped CNMI government continues to operate under the $148.5 million budget for FY 2009 in the absence of a new appropriation measure.

But the newly ratified House Legislative Initiative 16-11 mandates a government shutdown of the government if no new budget is enacted in the next fiscal year.

In a separate interview, Inos said the administration will be able to submit to the House of Representatives a FY 2011 budget proposal on or before the April 1 deadline.

“We’re going to meet that deadline. Our challenge is our resources,” he said.

Right now, Inos said the CNMI’s projected resources require the reduction of the work hours of government employees by 16 hours every payroll.

However, he said this may change depending on the trend of their tax collections.

“The numbers would drive the ultimate need. If we need to reduce cost by about $7 million then we have to do it whether it’s 60 hours or what, but we always make it a point to be considerate to [government employees] for many obvious reasons,” the lt. governor said.

“If we can’t increase our resources then we got to reduce costs and austerity is a cost-reduction matter,” he added.