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FY-99 Budget submitted to Congress

PALIKIR, Pohnpei (FSM Information Service): April 28, 1998 - President Jacob Nena, on April 18^th, submitted to Congress Speaker Jack Fritz, the Administration's budget plan for Fiscal year 1999.

It contains funding requirement for the Executive, Legislative, Judiciary and all independent agencies including special programs of the National Government.

The budget reflects a structure that can provide essential, effective and economical to this Government, Nena stated. The policy of this administration is to hold the growth and to continually reduce the s size and expenditure to the size and level of resources that may be available in the future.

Nena's budget reflected a total proposed budget of $22,109,147. Of this total $21,690,147 will derive from Current General Fund with $519,000 from surveillance grant.

An amount of $12,688,093 will be for the operation of the Executive Branch, $2,726,200 for Legislative, $956,700 for Judiciary, $492,900 for Public Auditor, $1,554,411 for Agencies and $3,690,843 for other programs and subsidy contributions. Also included is $896,506 to service the Early Retirement Loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), $304,152 for Energy, $882,000 for Telecommunication, $188,000 for Health and Medical referral program and $457,925 for others.

The Capital budget for development is $7,606,700, of which $2,960,000 for the College of Micronesia-FSM, $130,000 for upgrading of the National Government staff, $500,000 for FSM 2000 Population and Housing Census, $200,000 for National Visitors Council and $187,000 for a Regional Livestock project.

Nena stated that he has redesignated a total of $5,717,000 from the current General Fund into the Compact Capital Account to supplement the development budget requests. Partial Funding will be made available from the Post-Secondary funding under Section 216 (a) (3) of the Compact, Nena added.

Nena recommends that $,2,000,000 of the $15 million estimated to remaining available be set aside as a trust fund to supplement funding for the future years when less Compact funding becomes a reality. Nena advised that it is not necessary now to create any legal requirements, Additionally, without it will give more usage flexibility.