About $4M allocated to MVA for FY 2024
The Marianas Visitors Authority, despite initially requesting significantly more, was allocated just a little over $4 million for its fiscal year 2024 budget.
During an MVA board meeting last Thursday, board members discussed MVA’s budget for 2024 and it was learned that the agency’s estimated budget for fiscal year 2024 is $5,399,602 despite initially requesting about $12 million.
However, according to MVA managing director Chris Concepcion, of the $5.3 million, only about $4.5 million was allocated to MVA and the rest of the budget is comprised of leftover monies left unspent from previous fiscal years.
“Initially, MVA requested roughly $12 million so what we were allocated was significantly less. That number, however, is based off of pre-COVID-19 budget numbers. If we wanted to bring the tourism industry back to pre-COVID levels, we need pre-COVID budget. That’s why we submitted an initial request of $12 million. Ultimately, a little over $4 million was the safe projection from the Legislature and the Office of Management of Budget, and so we went with that plus some savings we had from the last fiscal year that we didn’t fully exhaust. So, we’re going to add that to our fiscal year 2024 budget which is how we came out with the $5.3-million figure,” he said.
Concepcion shared that this budget, compared to last fiscal year, is significantly less as MVA had been surviving off of ARPA funds.
ARPA stands for the American Rescue Plan Act.
“Compared to last year, its much less because last year we did have ARPA funding that was used to supplement MVA’s expenditures because the Hotel Occupancy Tax law, which gives 80% of the revenue generated from that tax to the MVA, was suspended for the last two fiscal years. We have just been surviving off funds that were given to us from ARPA during Covid. All of that went all to different TRIP programs, travel agency support programs that were going on during COVID. There was quite a lot that was spent during the last two years after the pandemic,” he said.
Because their budget is much smaller than they initially requested, Concepcion said MVA has had to make necessary cuts in order to stay afloat.
“We did have to cut a lot of our spending in different areas throughout operations. We have implemented austerity; we are observing the 72-hour per pay period plan currently in place,” he said.
Concepcion added that the priority right now is maintaining operations, maintaining a presence in markets like Japan and Korea, and ensuring that CNMI signature events continue.
“Our biggest priority with this budget is operations. We need to make sure that we’re open and that we have enough staff to run our operations here in the CNMI. That’s a big part of our expenses. We also have to maintain our presence in the market so really our second top priority is our offices in Japan and Korea. We need to maintain a presence in those markets in order to survive and thrive. Our third priority is really the events held in the CNMI throughout the year. These are our signature events like the Taste of the Marianas, the Saipan Marathon, Hell in the Marianas, the new Rota Marathon this January, Pika Festival, and all the different smaller event held throughout the year that are not necessarily hosted by the MVA but we support like the Flame Tree Arts festival, and other events held by other agencies and organizations,” he said.
Christopher A. Concepcion
