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As public funds coast south
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Posted on Aug 29 2000
The Issue: Unsettling tidings of NMI’s inability to pay its bills to vendors, including off-island health providers.
Our View: Must critically reassess expenditure behavior or we’d forever be swimming in the sea of deficits.
The financial posture of the CNMI continues to deteriorate quicker than all the fancy tidings we kid ourselves with about recovery. Even more troublesome is the depth of the continuing plummet in revenue generation as we head toward year’s end.
Other than the early sixties when the NMI endured a shift of administration–Navy to Interior–that saw hourly wage plunge from $.75 an hour to $.33 an hour, the economic downward spiral is definitely very troubling.
The retirement program has said that Straub Medical Clinic would have to wait before payment is made in full. That is a tale of a troubled Fund that hasn’t been paid its dues from the local government. Does it mean the denial of medical services for patients requiring referral to Straub clinic and other providers?
Other vendors too, i.e., construction companies haven’t been paid their dues on a timely basis. This delay triggers non-payment of wages to workers, a delay that was inflicted by federal agencies managing federally funded projects. The Department of Interior has slammed the brakes on some of these payments, a decision perhaps so designed to bankrupt the local economy to force another mea culpa and involuntary genuflection.
It is alarming how this phenomenon has quietly choked the ability of local government to meet its financial obligations. Yet, there are those who are even willing (either out of stubbornness, ignorance or arrogance) to sink opportunities for recovery. Ironically, some are up for re-election whose jury they will meet full square at the campaign trail sometime next year.
Nothing looks optimistic for the balance of this or next year. Real recovery is a distant goal under the circumstance. We’d like to think that leadership is the answer, but our hope is often dashed by this very crisis these long dogged days of summer.
