Senators passed a more than $1 billion budget for the Government of Guam for Fiscal Year 2023.  The record spending plan was approved late last night in a closer-than-expected 9-to-6 vote.

Two republicans - Jim Moylan and Mary Torres - sided with seven democrats in voting 'Yes', while Speaker Therese Terlaje joined five republicans in voting 'No'. Appropriations chairman Senator Joe San Agustin admits he was a little surprised at the final count, saying, "If you look at every one of them that voted no, they contributed to the budget being bigger than what was submitted by my office."

"I think the speaker wanted things for Public Health and several others. I think the minority leader Senator [Chris] Duenas wanted funds for Fishermen's Co-Op, and he also supported other amendments. Senator [Frank] Blas wanted  to make sure we passed for the teachers' education,  so great. Senator Telo [Taitague] wanted to make sure we added $10 million for the road project and the bicycle lanes," he added.

But the aforementioned Senator Taitague is one of the critics of the record spending plan, saying, "We continue to grow the government instead of helping our economy diversifying, workforce development areas. this is the time now when we need to retrain our workforce."

San Agustin says if there was anyone being disingenuous, it wasn't him. "I was happy because they were contributing to the budget, but then to say at the end i contributed but I don't agree with you. well then you shouldn't have added to it," he shared.

"Some believe that it was an unbalanced budget that we passed. I think with all the extra un-projected excess revenue for Fiscal Year 2022 was spent like crazy, it was a freny of spending. like i said it was like no tomorrow," Taitague added, with San Agustin responding, "It's not an unbalanced budget. It is a budget period, ok? When she wants to say that we may not have money, they knew that up front, but when you're talking surplus right, its under the assumption by nature of the audit, that funds will be there."

Senator Taitague added, "We have not prepared ourselves for something like this, to sustain ourselves. that's gonna be not only an unbalance scenario but I think what's going to happen is we're gonna get into a predicament where we wont have enough money to sustain what we have already appropriated."

In the end, senators wound up appropriating even more than they planned to. San Agustin said, "It was projected at $1.022 [billion], and when you add the additional, I would say, $13 [million] plus $20 [million], an additional $30 million."

The bill did meet the midnight deadline and is now headed to the governor for her action.