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Legislature OKs $20M borrowing
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Posted on Apr 22 2005
The Legislature has approved a measure authorizing the Commonwealth Development Authority to borrow $20 million to allow the government to give salary increases and settle the unpaid retroactive pay of government employees.
The House of Representatives accepted Thursday the amendments offered by the Senate on House Bill 14-304. The bill now goes to the governor.
H.B. 14-304, authored by Rep. Jesus Attao, originally wanted to allocate $10.9 million in fiscal year 2005 to raise government employees’ salaries, pay off retroactive compensation, as well as retirement and health insurance contributions.
Attao said the funds would be sourced from the additional revenue identified by the Babauta administration for FY 2005.
When the bill reached the Senate, the figure was raised to $20 million and, instead of using projected government revenues, it now asked the CDA to look for the funds.
The bill, if signed into law, would settle “unpaid frozen steps, within-grade increases and retroactive adjustments” over the past years.
Under Attao’s bill, Rota employees would get a total of $1.9 million: $224,163 for frozen steps, $1.04 million for retroactive pay, and $702,933 for within-grade increases.
Tinian personnel would receive $1.5 million: $316,990 for frozen steps, $904,157 for retroactive pay, and $344,971 for within-grade increases.
Saipan employees would have $5.03 million: $1.6 million for frozen steps and $3.5 million for within-grade increases. Their retroactive pay has already been paid off.
The bill also wants to set aside $2.4 million for government employees’ retirement, Medicare, and health insurance contributions.
The amended version also provides some $9 million for reimbursement to the Saipan and Northern Island Legislative Delegation account. The local account was used to pay off the retroactive pay of Saipan government employees.
