The outcome of a conference committee between the House and Senate today on the administration’s interim appropriations bill is to approve the changes that the House made to the bill.
The appropriations bill authorizes the spending of funds to keep ASG opened until a Fiscal Year 2021 budget law has been signed.
Though the Senate had approved keeping the 30 day effective period for the bill as proposed by the administration, House Speaker Savali Talavou Ale was successful in convincing Senators to extend this to 60 days.
The main reasons given for the longer effective period were that if the appropriations bill terminates in 30 days , the governor cannot spend money after that. So the additional 30 days are needed to cover a longer period.
Also members of the House are facing an election next week, and it’s uncertain who would be returning to attend to another special session when the 30 days period runs out.
Senate President Gaoteote Palaie Tofau, Senator Magalei Logovii, Chairman of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, and Senators Tuaolo Fruean and Logoai Siaki all spoke to support the 30 day effective period.
But at the end of the deliberations there was consensus to approve the longer effective period for the bill, 60 days.
The Senate met afterwards to approve the House bill which will now be enrolled and submitted to the governor for signing.
The special session of the Fono that Governor Lolo Moliga called for a total of 30 days has now ended.
