The final budget proposal of the Lolo and Lemanu administration as they wrap up their first term in office totals $378.4 million, a ten percent reduction over the current year budget. The cut is primarily from a 20% decrease in enterprise Funds which according to the budget summary drops from, $196.7 million to $157.9 million.
ASG is forecasting local revenues of $106 million, which is up from the amount approved in the FY2016 budget of $104.4 million.
According to a June report by the Legislative Financial Officer, which was based on financial reports from Treasury and Budget, ASG was looking at a shortfall of more than $11 million when it closes its books Sept 30.
Federal grants are pegged at $106.1 million and Capital Improvement Projects at $9.6 million, with Enterprise Funds at $157.9 million.
The distribution of local revenues in the proposed budget are : the Executive Branch gets $69.4 million, an increase of 1%, the Fono receives $6.9 million, the same as its current year funding, the Judiciary receives $2.8 million, no change from FY2016 and Special Programs, is $26.8 million, a drop of 1%.
The breakdown of how those local revenues are spent:
- 63% goes to salaries.
- 14% would be spent on contractual services,
- 19 % goes to all others,
- only 2% goes to materials and supplies and
- 1 percent goes to equipment.
The administration’s optimism with regards to revenue collections comes from job creation in some old and new economic development projects.
According to the budget summary, Tri Marine will continue to increase its labor force, AVM Bernardo Engineering “which has begun construction of its multipurpose food processing plant will make available 500 new jobs,” and there’s mention of a new group that has not been publicized before, Meredith Development Group.
The budget narrative says this Meredith Development Group is beginning to implement its multi faceted investment program in the field of tourism, agriculture, rental units and others netting $100 million of investment.
There’s also mention of Datamatics, the local group working with an off-island company that had plans to set up a back office processing operation here.
According to the budget summary, negotiations are ongoing with Datamatics for a call center.
It also says the establishment of the Territorial Bank of American Samoa will increase business investments for entrepreneurship and business expansion.
Added to that list is the promise that the State Small Business Credit Initiative Program will be fully operational by the end of this year.
The budget proposal does point that while there’s optimism, there are major impediments threatening our two canneries: the expansion of ocean monuments, continued escalation of the minimum wage, neighboring islands’ aggressive attempts to gain more money for their fish and lapsing federal incentives.
The budget summary lists long term debts incurred by previous administrations that the current government has been able to pay off, some with the $78 million that was raised from the sale of bonds by the American Samoa Economic Development Authority.
