‘I had many questions and concerns’ on budget

Sen. Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) voted against the budget bill chiefly because he had concerns involving retiree benefits and interisland medical referrals.

Manglona, the lone senator who voted against the budget bill last Thursday, explained that his main concern involved the 25% of class members’ full retiree benefits.

“I offered a floor amendment, which would have guaranteed this payment to the retirees by suspending Public Law 20-10, should the special casino revenue tax account be insufficient to cover it,” he told Saipan Tribune in a statement.

P.L. 20-10 splits the annual casino license renewal fee of $15 million among Saipan, Rota, and Tinian.

Manglona’s floor amendment was not seconded and did not move forward on the Senate floor. The senator met the same fate twice in a row after he introduced another floor amendment that sets aside $100,000 from the budget allocated for Rota for interisland medical referrals.

“…The amendment would have provided urgently and desperately needed [funds] for interisland medical referral patients traveling from Rota to Saipan. This would have restored a similar appropriation language included in last year’s budget law,” he said.

Sen. Teresita Santos (Ind-Rota) pointed out that these concerns were discussed during Senate leadership meetings.

She said she had recommended allocating a certain amount for air transportation, lodging and accommodations, as well as stipends for interisland medical referrals “but because of the tightness of the general appropriations that we are to act on today and [because] I was informed that we may be receiving supplemental appropriations in the very near future, should that materialize, the Senate will highly consider appropriating a certain amount not only to [Rota] but even to the air transportation, lodging and accommodations, as well as stipends for inter-island medical referrals for [Tinian].”

Sen. Sixto Igisomar (R-Saipan) assured Manglona that a supplemental appropriation would soon follow after voting on the budget bill takes place.

“Although we did not second his motions, it does not mean we do not support his motions. I want to iterate that we discussed all those during committee meetings,” he said.

“…We are all for the full support of [the retiree benefits]. We will make sure that retiree [benefit funding is] never injured, never diminished, nor impaired,” he added. “There [is] funding forthcoming and available”.

After several hours of discussions with a handful of House of Representative members in an attempt to avert conference committee discussions, the Senate passed the fiscal year 2020 budget bill last Thursday morning on a vote of 6-1.

Santos explains further
In a separate statement over the weekend, Santos explained her opposition to Manglona’s amendments.

She noted that suspending P.L. 20-10 would have to originate from the House since the Senate did not have the power of the purse.

“This amendment is not appropriate for the budget bill because the budget bill can only appropriate funds identified by our governor. The $15-million license fee was not identified in the House concurrent resolution…therefore not part of the budget bill.” she said, adding the House concurrent resolution sets the limit on the amount the Legislature can appropriate.

“The amendment cannot be introduced in the Senate because our NMI Constitution states that all appropriation and revenue bills must be initiated in the House of Representatives,” she added.

On Manglona’s attempt to introduce an amendment that would have set aside $100,000 for Rota’s interisland medical referral patients, Santos noted that she had previously proposed a similar floor amendment for the same purpose.

She said she was assured, though, by Senate Committee on Fiscal Affairs chair Sen. Jude Hofschneider (R-Tinian) that the Legislature can address that need in a supplemental budget or a fund certification of $1 million each for Rota and Tinian from the recent remittance of the $5 million casino license fee.

Manglona also brought up the issue of the $15 million Marianas Public Land Trust Fund loan during budgetdiscussions. He offered the members a “potential revenue source” that can be used by the Public School System to fix damaged school buildings.

“All we needed was a language in the budget bill to state that, in the event that the Federal Emergency Management Agency reimburses funds expended for [Super] Typhoon Yutu, the $15 million from the MPLT loan shall be re-appropriated to PSS [and other obligations],” he said in a statement to Saipan Tribune.

Santos noted, though, that inserting this into the budget bill would not also work.

“The MPLT loan fund was not identified in the House concurrent resolution. The MPLT loan was a result of negotiation between our governor and MPLT. The use of fund was agreed to by the parties and the attorney general approved the use of [this] fund,” she noted.

“The Legislature cannot change the purpose and use of the funds unilaterally because the loan has terms and conditions that have been approved to by the parties. To change the loan, the governor and MPLT must start all over to discuss and agree to any changes and the attorney general must approve it,” she added.