Government of the Federated States of Micronesia

FY-99 Budget submitted to Congress

PALIKIR, Pohnpei (FSM Information Service): April 28, 1998 – President Jacob
Nena, on April 18th, 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.