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$5M stimulus funds mulled for medical referrals
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Posted on Apr 20 2009
The administration is changing how it plans to use $8 million in federal stimulus funds.
Esther Fleming of the Office of Management and Budget said government officials are now planning on reserving approximately $5 million for the Department of Public Health’s Medical Referral Office, which has seen a spike in numbers but was only budgeted for $5,172 for non-personnel costs in Fiscal Year 2009. The administration had originally planned on using all the money to cover employee payroll. Now the plan is to allocate majority of the money to DPH and use the remaining $3 million to cover employee payroll.
Fleming said, though, that $3 million will not be enough to cover the payroll expenses for all employees and some people will eventually be let go.
She said she is working with the Department of Finance to obtain status reports on the last two quarters of the fiscal year and determine how much the government overspent. Initial numbers show the government overspent by $4.5 million during the first quarter of FY 2009 and $2 million to $3 million last quarter, for a total of $6.5 million to $7.5 million.
“We wanted to get a real idea of the spending trend, especially for this last quarter to determine exactly where the shortfalls are going to be,” Fleming said, adding that she had hoped the Legislature would pass austerity measures like unpaid holidays and austerity Fridays.
“Basically, we were hoping to have it across the board, that would include the autonomous and other government agencies, across the board with civil service employees,” she said. “I think that would alleviate a lot more of our shortfall for FY 09.”
The CNMI is expected to receive $43 million under the stabilization portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The Medical Referral Office referred 716 patients to off island medical providers in FY 2008, a 27-percent increase from only 565 patients in FY 2007.
As expected, medical referral spending also increased from close to $4 million in FY 2007 to about $5 million in FY 2008.
