Senators made some big changes to the supplemental budget bill during Day Two of emergency session.  A $50 million substitute version quickly adopted this morning and successfully moved to the voting file. 

"We are now rising out of the Committee of the Whole," it was announced Wednesday. Senators were ready to vote after only Day Two in emergency session. Lawmakers adopted a substitute version of Supplemental Budget Bill 355, now worth some $50 million. 

It’s a $13 million increase from the original $36.7 million of excess revenues promised to various GovGuam priorities that were underfunded in the August budget session. 

Bureau of Budget & Management Research director Lester Carlson testified Tuesday that there’s an increase of excess revenues reported in September, saying, "We’re at a situation where we’re at $51 million cash received. So we’re here today to look at how to appropriate that cash, because it's not a forecast. It’s not budgeting. We have the money in the bank. What are we going to do with it?"

Lawmakers mulled-over how to divvy up the monies on the first day of emergency session. One major concern, as noted by Speaker Therese Terlaje, was, "GMH is not contemplated in (Bill) 355."

So in order to fund Guam's only public hospital, the speaker asked, "We cannot fund everything in Bill 355, is that correct?" with Carlson replying, "That is absolutely correct, especially after the amendment was passed for the Mayors Council today."

Notably, the substituted version allocates $20 million for the Guam Memorial Hospital, $10 million for the operations, maintenance and repair of GDOE schools, $2.5 million to the Guam Cancer Trust Fund, $4.5 million for the Mayors Council of Guam and $15.8 million to extend the Energy Credit Program.  

It also deletes appropriations for the Office of Homelessness Assistance and Poverty Prevention, the Department of Integrated Services for Individuals with Disabilities, the University of Guam's capital improvement projects, the Guam Bureau of Women’s Affairs’ Doula Project and the Guam Police Department’s HVAC systems.

It should be noted other funding sources are being considered for those cut out. 

For the time being, senators are expected to vote Thursday. 

Also on emergency session news, Mayors Council president Jesse Alig, who is running for re-election, filed an ethics complaint against Senator Wil Parkinson. As KUAM reported, Parkinson is accused of making an inappropriate gesture at Senator Joanne Brown yesterday. 

The legislature livestream did not capture the incident, but Alig says many mayors, vice mayors and staff watching the emergency session on the second floor balcony witnessed the “sexually explicit gestures.”

In a letter to Speaker Terlaje, Mayor Alig says he is “appalled, outraged and insulted at the demeanor of Senator Parkinson” and requests her discernment of ethical misconduct. 

He adds, “This single act of wrongdoing has overpowered Senator Parkinson’s good intentions for the Mayors Council of Guam.”