Governor Lolo Moliga has sent the Fono a supplemental budget bill which includes $992,500 that he had vetoed in the Fiscal Year 2016 budget law plus the $1.3 million that was recently returned from Vietnam. .
The proposed supplemental restores $51,500 that the Fono cut from the American Samoa Visitors Bureau budget and the total amount that the Legislature reduced from the Governor’s Special Programs.
Governor Lolo is restoring funding for all except one of the 8 Special Program items that the Fono removed.
Full funding was restored for the Sports Complex subsidy, the Electricity and Water Fund for the Executive Office Building, ASG Construction projects/school maintenance, the apprenticeship program that hires degreed professionals named Economic Development Public and Private, the Road Maintenance Subsidy, Veterans Memorial Stadium improvements, and the American Samoa History Book Project.
The only funding cut by the Fono that the governor did not restore was the allowance for former governors and surviving spouses.
Lolo said, “We concur with the budget cut to this line item in view of the passing of the late Mrs. Faga Satele Sunia.”
The money is being used to supplement other special programs.
The governor informed the Fono leaders of the return to ASG of the $1.3 million which was transferred to Vietnam in an internet based fraud scheme.
That money along with proceeds from the charging of cargo for Manu’a, plus the surviving spouse allowance, totals $1.6 million.
Lolo is proposing that this amount be spent on new special programs.
The list of new special programs includes:
-repairs to the Fono’s Fale Samoa
-professional developmebt for judges
-installtion of guardrails
-shoreline protection along Matafao and Vatia elementary schools
-Adopt a School Program and
-LBJ Dialysis staff training
Governor Lolo informed the Senate President and House Speaker all of these programs help infuse dollars in to the economy at a time if uncertainty for the tuna industry.
