House, Senate eye loan to finance new NMC campus

Sen. Jude U. Hofschneider (R-Tinian) said he and other senators and some members of the House of Representatives have had numerous meetings over the last month and a half with the Northern Marianas College as they work on funding new campus buildings through a U.S. Department of Agriculture loan.

“It seems right now they are communicating on the proposal. What we are waiting on now is for them to appear before us and give us the details,” said Hofschneider, who is also Senate fiscal chair.

He said they’ve met with NMC acting president David Attao, Joe Diego from the USDA, and members of the college Board of Regents on funding through a USDA loan.

The House and the Senate, though, would have to approve such public debt and Rep. Blas Jonathan Attao (Ind-MP) last week pre-filed such a measure to authorize NMC “to incur a debt a public debt and/or establish a revolving line of up to $40,000” over 40 years, “for the financing of the construction of a new Student and Resource and Community Learning Center” and other capital improvements.

House Joint Resolution 19-11 lists the “details of such a loan” at a dollar amount of $20 million, interest rate at 2.25 percent (prevailing interest rate is adjusted every quarter and not to go above 2.75 percent); a term of 40 years, a monthly payment of $68,746; a debt reserve, or 1/10 of monthly payment at $6,875 for a total monthly payment of $75,620; an annual payment of $824,927; and annual payment plus debt reserve at $907,441.

Hofschneider, referring to recent waves of bad weather that revealed “how dilapidated” the NMC building were, said he is calling on members of the Legislature to help the agency. “Although, we see the economy is in recovery—if not improving over the last few months—we also need to make sure that the only institution here that is providing our community post secondary education, that we need to take care of them. They are the only institution here that is preparing our community our students for the workforce that we need in the CNMI.”

The college, he said, continues to look at its options and its capability to finance and service a loan versus how much money they will be generating from direction appropriations from the legislature or other revenue sources.

Attao’s proposed joint resolution notes that the NMC was originally built as a hospital in 1959.

However, it now has over 1,200 full-time students, 2,000 non-traditional and part-time students—“even though it was originally built to serve hospital patients.”

The resolution states it is in the public interest to construct a new learning center and other capital improvements for the estimated growth of up to 2,000 full-time students and 3,000 non-traditional and part-time students.