Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Lemanu and Talauega Administration have been “informed” the budget hearings for the new financial year 2022-2023 scheduled to start on Sept. 06, 2022 will proceed as planned.

Senate President, Tuaolo Manaia Fruean confirmed this during the Senate session on Friday.

This follows concerns by Senator Magalei Logovi’i that Cabinet plans to travel to Samoa for the second half of the Atoa o Samoa talks formerly known as the 2Samoa talks that concluded last week.

The Senator said reports in the media is the local Cabinet has accepted the invitation by Samoa to travel to Apia around the time of budget hearings for a meeting with the Samoa Government.

Last week the Senate introduced its budget appropriations bill of close to $7 million proposed for the new fiscal year. The current fiscal year ends September 30, 2022.

The Senate has taken a recess of four weeks and will reconvene in September. The Senate President says that Governor Lemanu Peleti Mauga informed him about the trip to Apia next month.

 “I already informed the Governor of when the budget hearings will start and so it is their prerogative as to what is more important, the budget or the 2Samoa Talks,” said Tuaolo.

The budget of $693,415,435 for the new fiscal year was approved in first reading. The bill says this act provides consolidated appropriation of the American Samoa Government annual budget for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2023, and for other purposes.

 “There is an urgent need to provide funding for necessary and proper functions of the government, so this law shall become effective immediately upon passage by the Legislature and approval by the Governor.

“The sources of projected revenue identified for appropriation in the American Samoa Government Budget for Fiscal year 2023 by this act are as follows:

Local Revenue

            Taxes $77,505,500

            Licenses and Permits           $1,600,000

            Fees and Fines                    $5,500,000

            Charges for Services           $8,300,000

            Miscellaneous                    $1,900,000

            Total Indirect Costs           $7,000,000

            Total Transfers In           $16,071,000

 Total Local Revenue                  $117,876,500

            b. Capital Improvement Projects   $117,876,500

            c. Special Federal Grants                $10,262,500

            d. Enterprise Funds                     $223,526,635

Total Project Revenue Sources In

            Fiscal Year 2023                        $693,415,435.

The American Samoa Government’s proposed budget for the new financial year, starting October 1 2022, is capped at $693.41 million whereas 71.7 percent of $84.54 million is allocated for salaries.

The proposed budget has increased compared to the previous financial year of $552.78 million — a 25 percent increase.

This is outlined in Governor Lemanu’s executive summary of the new proposed fiscal year 2023.

Addressed to Senate President, Tuaolo and Speaker of the House, Savali Talavou Ale, the Governor said as they navigate through the current COVID-19 environment, although the island have been weathered and tested, through the process, the Government has become more resilient.

“With due gratitude these are incredible times as we continue to harvest the massive inflow of federal aid due to the pandemic, that provided funding for several critical projects to better our community.

“With certainty, the activities created from this influx of aid has provided stability to our revenue collection and further sustained our economy despite global market risks and chaos. Increase in Government wages and federal aid has helped ease some of the burden on families as a result of the increase in the cost of living.”