Rex Palacios checks in on MGOC report

After nearly five months, the Micronesian Games Organizing Committee has yet to turn in its report and according to MGOC chairman Rex Palacios it will be some time before one is submitted to the governor.

While his intention was to turn in the MGOC’s post-Games report no latter than a month following the closing ceremonies, Palacios said that he needed the chairmen of the subcommittees to submit their findings to make the report complete.

“I’m not working on it. It is impossible to do the report as the chairman of the MGOC if the reports from the individual committees are not submitted,” he said.

Of all of the MGOC’s committee’s, Palacios said that he has only received two—one from the subcommittee on media and marketing and a draft from the accommodations committee that was returned for modifications and never resubmitted.

“Those things have to be compiled before the report can be submitted. I tried calling the various committee chairs for a wrap-up meeting and to plan the reports but only half of them showed up,” he said.

While the overall report is still in limbo, Palacios said that the financial report regarding all funds received and paid out can be generated with the information already in hand.

“That I have to personally make time to complete. That one is my responsibility,” he said.

The only obstacle is time. After performing services to the MGOC pro bono for six months, Palacios said that he has had less time on his hands given his new position with the Commonwealth Ports Authority which is making him travel throughout the CNMI regularly.

While there is no official financial report ready and the specifics were not available at the time, Palacios said that there isn’t any money remaining in the MGOC account and that all of the vendors had been paid.

“As far as I know, what I did was email the vendors that I could email and either fax or call the others requesting them to turn in their invoices. When we received them, I confirmed them with the individual [athletic] federations. We were hoping to have some money left over but what ate up most of the money was that we fed everyone,” he said.

Palacios explained that each of the sites was allotted a certain number of meals for volunteers but in several cases there were more meals than there were people to eat them. While all of the meals were paid for, in many cases the surplus meals were given out to the athletes or simply thrown out. At $3-$5 per meal, the costs added up quickly.

When informed about the Northern Mariana Islands Volleyball Association’s contention that the MGOC owes one of its vendors a balance of $1,979.50, Palacios said that he believed that all accounts were settled.

“We went through their budget and if their vendor had already submitted their invoice we contacted them. As far as I’m concerned we don’t have any invoice, in our unpaid invoice folder,” he said.

Palacios admitted that there is a possibility that there may have been a mistake but that it would not be from a lack of due diligence on behalf of the MGOC.

“That one may have slipped through the cracks. It could be that they forgot to submit the invoice or [misplaced] it. It has happened. We went out there and tried to pay for all the invoices that were in our possession,” he said.

Despite there being no money left in the MGOC account, Palacios said that he would gladly speak with any of the sports federations or vendors that believe they are due money and work out a way to satisfy their debts. His plan to pay any outstanding bills follows the same plan he employed to gain support for the Games in the first place.

“We’ll go back to the original donors and see if they can still generously give us extra funds or go to the [government] departments that we helped out and ask for assistance. I paid for improvements for a lot of recreation facilities,” he said.

Palacios explained that under his watch, the MGOC paid to update numerous facilities at the Oleai Sports Complex to include the lights of Miguel “Tan Ge” Basa Softball Field and Francisco M. Palacios Baseball Field. One of the major expenses was the nearly $20,000 spent to repair the air conditioning system at the Marianas High School Gymnasium, but the MGOC also had to pay for the school’s broken water pump and the trailers shipped in from Palau that provided additional shower and toilet facilities.

The MGOC could recoup some of the funds from the sale of the trailers but as of now, Palacios said that there have been no takers.

“They are still sitting in the Sablan Construction compound in San Antonio. I spoke with the sports people and Parks and Recreation but they were not interested. I spoke with [DCCA secretary] Daisy (Villagomez-Bier) and Tony Benevente at Parks and Recreation to see if they’d have any use for them but nobody committed to taking them. As far as the MGOC is concerned, we’ll hold on to then until we can sell them to the next group hosting the Games can use them,” he said.

Palacios said that he also has the leftover medals and the flags which flew at every venue, and he thinks that the flags could either be turned over to NMASA or sold to the next island host of the Games.

As for the Northen Marianas Athletics claim that they had an outstanding $1,500 balance as well, Palacios said that he thought the issue was already handled.

“We discussed it several times. We went out and contracted the stage (for approximately $6,000) to include a sound system. It was available for the Games and the ceremonies. (NMA) called [another company] and used a public address system instead. When I found out about that I asked them why they went out and got another one,” he said.

NMA representatives have since given up efforts to recover the funds and have since paid the vendor out of their treasury.