The Fono is moving to prohibit the use of any funds in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget to pay the salary of any ASG director who has not been confirmed by the Legislature.
This was the outcome of discussions by the Joint Budget Committees on Friday.
The House had proposed that the Fono pass budgets for the first two quarters of the new fiscal year for agencies and departments whose directors were not submitted to the Fono for confirmation—thus allowing operation for these agencies to continue while the Fono awaits the submission of their directors for approval.
But the Senate’s position was to prohibit the use of any funds in the new fiscal year budget to pay salaries of directors of affected departments and agencies. If and when director nominations for these departments are sent to the Fono for approval, the executive branch can submit supplemental budget requests to authorize payment of the directors’ salaries.
Senate Counsel Mitzie Jessop-Taase presented a legal opinion before Senators prior to the joint budget hearing.
She laid out that under the American Samoa Code Annotates 4.0112, directors of cabinet departments and the heads of bureaus or offices—who do not report either to the head of a cabinet department or to the head of a bureau or office whose appointment is subject to confirmation by the Legislature—shall be appointed by the Governor and confirmed by a majority vote of the entire membership of each house of the Legislature.
All other appointments shall be by the Governor, unless by law that particular position is subject to confirmation by the Senate or by the Legislature.
However, heads of bureaus or offices are those who do not report to a cabinet director and do not report to anyone whose appointment was confirmed by the Legislature. They exercise authority over their own staff and budget, unless otherwise restricted by law or executive directive.
Jessop-Taase pointed out that there are many agencies and bureaus who are headed by directors, and these agencies are listed on the ASG website as being led by a director.
Further, the Fiscal Year 2026 budget documents submitted to the Fono lists the titles of heads of these agencies as directors—and they are assigned director level salaries.
She said this further supports the conclusion that these appointments warrant Legislative confirmation under ASCA 4.0112.
Senator Togiola Tulafono explained that the Fono can use its appropriations authority to eliminate or reduce the salaries of the unconfirmed directors in the budget. He also pointed out that the administration has violated the law, which provides that a person can only serve as an acting director and be paid with government funds for 90 days. He said if the Governor has elevated the positions of what used to be managers, coordinators, and the like in these agencies to “director” and given them the same salaries as department directors, these individuals should be approved by the Fono. He added that the Fono does not have the authority to change the titles of these heads of agencies, due to the separation of powers. This was the Governor’s prerogative.
Senate President Tuaolo Manaia Fruean said by taking this move—not allowing funds to pay salaries of unconfirmed directors—the Fono would send a clear message to the executive branch that it must follow the law regarding the confirmation of directors.
During the joint budget hearing, Vice Speaker Fetui said the House agrees with the Senate that this practice of not submitting the heads of agencies with the title of director for Fono confirmations should be stopped. However, the House felt that the operations of these agencies should be allowed to continue. He also said it was the Governors Office that is at fault for not following the law.
It was decided that the salaries of the heads of these agencies would be appropriated for other purposes. One suggestion was to allocate a part of the salary funds to cover the costs of next year’s elections, as the Election Office budget did not include any funding for this purpose.
The final list of agencies affected will be identified by the chairmen of the Joint Budget Committees.
Some of the agencies mentioned are the Arts Council, ASG Hawaii Office, American Samoa Environmental Protection Agency, Criminal Justice Planning Agency, Medicaid, Office of Disaster Assistance and Petroleum Management, Office of Property Management, Sports Complex, Veterans Affairs, Vocational Rehabilitation, Office of Public Defender, American Samoa Historic Preservation Office, American Samoa Resilience Office, ASG Insurance, ARPA Office, Feleti Barstow Public Library, and Office of Information Technology.
