Is it kind of like flying blind? The lack of a spending plan from the administration heading into next month's budget deliberations is not sitting well with Minority Leader Chris Duenas. The senator was reacting to comments from Bureau of Budget & Management Research director Lester Carlson that the plan won't be released until they get final arp spending guidance from the Treasury, which likely won't come in time.

"So we're going to go in and try to fashion a budget that we don't even know what the governor intends to do. And I think that's just a bad way to work with the legislature," he told KUAM News.

Duenas says there's no reason to wait for Treasury clarification. He says its clear to him that you can spend arp money on financially-strapped agencies like the Guam Customs & Quarantine Agency, which that lost all of its passenger fee revenue because of the pandemic.

"They cant even pay their rent up there. they were told to get to the back of the line, in terms of doing their recruitment. They cant even do testing and prepare for the next cycle to come in. being while they have retirements, resignations. All this happening and their workforce is just dwindling. That is absolutely a perfect expenditure of ARP funds," he added.

"You cannot tell me she can't drop $10 million into their budget right now."

He says the Guam Legislature needs to take a stand if the administration continues to refuse to share details of their spending plan, noting, "If I was the appropriations chair right now, I would consider reducing the overall general fund by a hundred million dollars and say governor where are you gonna put this money, what agencies are you going to fund because this is no longer the budget that you sent to us, because we just don't know what you're going to do," said Duenas.

He also said, "God bless our good friend Lester Carlson - when we come down and we open up in Committee of the Whole, and I will give this to the budget chair, he has done what we've asked him to do, he marked off the whole month of August for the budget."

He says they were also promised advance copies of the budget so they can prepare for what's shaping up to be a protracted month-long deliberation.