Legislative aides could be out of work Friday

Posted by Arlyssa Becenti | Sep 29, 2016 | News |

WINDOW ROCK

Twenty-two legislative district assistants will be out of work after Friday — the last day of the present fiscal year — thanks to a line-item vetoed by President Russell Begaye in the Fiscal Year 2017 budget.

Begaye also vetoed funds needed to prevent layoffs within the regional business development office, shore up the Navajo Area Agency on Aging, establish an Amber Alert system and hire more criminal investigators, all of which were added to the budget by council in recent deliberations. In total, there is seventeen items in which Begaye exercised his line item vetoes.

With the vetoes, Begaye signed FY 2017’s $659.7 million comprehensive budget. And even with an increase of almost $40 million from the present year’s budget, it doesn’t prevent layoffs.

Carolene Whiteman, Legislative District Assistant to Council Delegate Edmund Yazzie (Churchrock/Iyanbito/Mariano Lake/Pinedale/Smith Lake/Thoreau) for the past three years, said she was “devastated” that her last day on the job will be on Friday after Begaye vetoed $1.6 million that would have gone to pay the assistants.

She is the breadwinner of her household and Yazzie refers to her as “Doc” because she has a Ph.D. in education.

“The President stands on four pillars,” said Whiteman. “My husband is a veteran, my mom is an elder, she lives with me, and I employ people to finish my home and that is also infrastructure. So, that’s all the four pillars that he just walked on.”

Rather than walking to the Council Chambers to sign the budget and discuss it with council members like they did last year, Begaye and Vice President Jonathan Nez were in Washington, D.C., and forwarded the justifications for their line-item vetoes in a memo to the Speaker of the Navajo Nation, LoRenzo Bates.

“We have stated since Day One of our Administration that in order for our government to be effective and be able to carry out our priorities we must develop a budget that is strategic,” stated the memo. “As such, we will maintain that position and preserve the budget that was submitted by our Executive Branch, as it is the budget needed and advocated by our division directors to carry out the needs and priorities of the Navajo Nation Government.”