Gov. Benigno R. Fitial thus summarized the state of the Commonwealth yesterday, as he delivered his first report to the Legislature since his inauguration a little more than 100 days ago.<\/p>\n
In his 30-minute speech, Fitial presented the status of the government as he found it in January, the steps his administration has taken, and his short-term and long-term plans.<\/p>\n
Contrary to tradition, Fitial tackled only economic issues. He skipped customary discussion about education, health care, and the environment, among other issues.<\/p>\n
The governor explained that it was \u201cno ordinary State of the Commonwealth Address.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur government is broke and I will not allow our government to continue spending on a deficit. I will not allow our government to borrow from our children\u2019s future,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are in a financial crisis. But make no mistake. We are going to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s speech was interrupted by applause only once. But it earned praise for presenting a no-nonsense report on the Commonwealth\u2019s financial condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the governor has given us a clear picture of the state of the Commonwealth,\u201d said House Vice Speaker Justo S. Quitugua, a Democrat.<\/p>\n
Republican Sen. Paul A. Manglona also commended the governor \u201cfor doing a good job at trying to explain to the members of the Legislature where we are and where we need to go from here.\u201d<\/p>\n
A government employee, who refused to be named, described the candidness of the governor\u2019s speech as \u201cnew and refreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitial delivered his speech at around 11:20am, following Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Villagomez\u2019s special report on the status of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. and Washington Rep. Pedro A. Tenorio\u2019s report on the activities of his D.C. office.<\/p>\n
The governor began by saying that, when he took office, he found a government laden with problems such as falling revenues, rising costs, 640 additional government employees, garment factory closures, an unrealistic budget, and a sick economy.<\/p>\n
He reported that the government had a $108 million deficit and it could reach $155 million if unliquidated obligations of the government were taken into account.<\/p>\n
He added that the previous administration overspent in the first three months of fiscal year 2006 and made commitments beyond its term. As a result, the Fitial administration was left with only $117 million, or about 60 percent of the FY2006 revenue estimate to spend for the eight remaining months.<\/p>\n
He touted his administration\u2019s accomplishments so far. He said he had appointed a quality Cabinet, worked cooperatively with the Washington Representative and the lawmakers, supported Tinian and Rota initiatives, reactivated the Governor\u2019s Council, and cut government costs.<\/p>\n
Currently, Fitial said, government efforts were directed to reducing personnel costs, which amount to about 75 percent of total government costs.<\/p>\n
He said that the government is renegotiating contracts with excepted service employees and strictly controlling overtime and other premium payments. Over 90 government positions have also been reduced.<\/p>\n
Autonomous agencies are also being urged to look for means within their areas of responsibility to help reduce government spending.<\/p>\n
For the remainder of the year, Fitial plans to have the Office of Personnel Management conduct a comprehensive desk audit of all positions in the CNMI government. He also intends to get the deficit down to \u201cas near zero as humanly possible,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the administration will focus on attracting investors into the Commonwealth, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial thus summarized the state of the Commonwealth yesterday, as he delivered his first report to the Legislature since his inauguration a little more than 100 days ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}