Tinian govt mulls austerity measures

The potential loss of Chinese visitors due to federalization could result in austerity measures for Tinian government employees, with projected revenues for Fiscal Year 2009 expected to top a measly $3.2 million.

Tinian Mayor Jose San Nicolas said yesterday that his office is looking at cutting the hours of its 129 employees to as low as 64 hours every two weeks if the revenue projections stand.

“I am the first mayor, first politician, and elected leader to first take action on austerity measures since 2006. We started at seven hours daily work, which gave us savings then of $1.7 million, but thereafter we resumed the eight-hour daily work [schedule],” he said.

Tinian Legislative Delegation chair Sen. Joseph Mendiola earlier disclosed that the Tinian Casino Gaming Control Commission and the island’s municipal treasury project revenue for FY 2009 to reach just $3.2 million. “The figure was based on both the gaming commission’s and municipal treasurer’s estimates,” Mendiola said.

San Nicolas noted that in the past he was criticized for shutting down street lamps on Tinian, which resulted in a significant drop in the power bills of the municipality.

“Those are just some of unpopular decisions and actions I have made for Tinian…and I am willing to do the same if that’s the only way we can survive this fiscal year,” he said.

San Nicolas added the salaries of his employees were also cut by 10 percent last year.

Mendiola said the drop in anticipated revenue was a result of the impact of pending federalization of the local labor and immigration systems.

“We have to consider that the bulk of the customers who are coming to Tinian are passengers from the [Tinian] Dynasty’s charter flights. With the impending immigration issues, we may not have the opportunity to bring in those customers anymore,” he said, adding that Tinian may still have them but it would take longer because of the regular visa processing for these travelers.

Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino caters mostly to Chinese visitors, who have been excluded from the CNMI-Guam visa waiver program.

As an alternative, Mendiola said Tinian needs to boost marketing efforts for its other markets such as Japan and Korea to at least offset the impact of possibly losing the Chinese travelers.

Mendiola said the delegation has asked the municipal treasurer for a comprehensive report on the island’s finances to determine if there’s a need to carry out austerity measures among employees.

“We need to find out what is the basic cost of employment on Tinian, how much are the benefits provided, retirement and medical. We need documents that would indicate what are the municipality’s fixed costs…until these are not submitted to us we cannot decide fairly,” he said.

Tinian Dynasty is the only operating casino on island. It remits a portion of its taxes to the gaming commission to pay for the municipality’s salary. But because of the island’s slow economy, the funds have dropped considerably.

Mendiola said they were supposed to receive the treasurer’s report last Monday.

Once enforced, the austerity measures will encompass the entire municipality of Tinian.

“The decision has to be made by everybody who is involved including the municipal council, the mayor, gaming commission and the delegation members,” Mendiola said, adding that as soon as he receives the report, a meeting will be called by delegation members.