IF YOU'RE looking for the much-touted $43 million cut in the government of Guam’s budget, don’t look for it in the budget proposals submitted to the Legislature for Fiscal Year 2013. You won’t find it there. In fact, you won’t find much in the way of cuts at all. Most of the agencies coming before the senators during the current budget hearings are, in fact, looking for more money, not less.

So what happened to that $43 million? Well, it’s kind of a Will-o-the-Wisp, a figment of somebody’s imagination – fleeting and ephemeral and, mostly, not there.

There was an interesting exchange last week between Bureau of Budget and Management Research Director John Rios and 31st Guam Legislature Speaker Judi Won Pat. She questioned why the cuts aren’t being reflected in the proposed FY2013 budget. Rios explained the cuts are not to be made in the FY2013 budget at all, since the administration is still awaiting the recommendations of its Spending Cuts Task Force.

“Well, that’s the first I heard of that,” said a bemused Speaker Won Pat in a Pacific News Center television interview. Bemused, we suppose, because the Legislature controls the purse strings, and is the only place where actual reductions in the budget can be made. In fact, passing an annual budget, and advising and consenting on appointments, are about the only things the Legislature is actually mandated by law to do.

If the cuts are not to be made in the FY2013 budget, when are they going to be made? Troy Torres, the governor’s director of communications, told PNC News in an emailed response that “the Legislature shouldn’t even consider this $43 million in the budget, because it shouldn’t be subject to appropriation. These spending cuts are cuts to cash spending and should not be considered as part of a budget. Senators shouldn’t be eyeing this money to appropriate it. These cuts are meant to pay down the deficit and to ensure fiscal stability in the years moving forward.”

Oh, well that’s perfectly clear. Now we’re bemused. The $43 million is to be cut from cash spending, once the Spending Cuts Task Force tells us what cash not to spend. The Legislature needn’t be involved in that process at all.

Except that Rios suggested once the task force’s recommendations are made, legislation will probably be required to effect the changes. The task force has no force of law behind what it recommends. It is merely advisory and of no legal standing. Where’s the $43 million in cuts? Out there somewhere, under consideration.

If all of this begins to sound like a shell game to you, you’re not alone.