{"id":17001,"date":"2011-09-02T09:01:11","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T09:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=17001"},"modified":"2011-09-02T09:01:11","modified_gmt":"2011-09-02T09:01:11","slug":"dela-cruz-eyes-relocation-of-tinian-mayors-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/dela-cruz-eyes-relocation-of-tinian-mayors-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Dela Cruz eyes relocation of Tinian Mayor&#8217;s Office"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>By Moneth Deposa<br \/>\nReporter<\/div>\n<p>Mayor Ramon Dela Cruz disclosed yesterday that he plans to relocate the entire Tinian Mayor&#8217;s Office and its key departments to a new site to save on cost.<\/p>\n<p>The municipality currently pays a private landowner monthly rental of $3,000-an amount he believes would only go higher in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Dela Cruz wants to transfer his offices to either a government-owned facility or a private but less costly space.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough we&#8217;re current in our rental fee for now, we need to make plans on how we can generate savings. Relocating to a government-owned facility or moving to a private space but at a lesser cost.will greatly help our government,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>He said the municipality is now assessing the potential cost if minor repairs are done on some government buildings on island.<\/p>\n<p>The mayor said they will do a cost-analysis that will guide them to reach a sound and practical decision.<\/p>\n<p>Tinian was appropriated a budget of $4.2 million this fiscal year. This is a steep drop when compared to fiscal year 2006 when revenue from casino operation stood at $4.9 million.<\/p>\n<p>Since he assumed office, Dela Cruz said he had cut down the number of employees from over 200 to less than 100.<\/p>\n<p>Since May, the municipality has never received its allotment for operations due to the central government&#8217;s cash-flow problems, Dela Cruz said. He estimates the operational deficit to reach over $200,000 by the end of this fiscal year.<\/p>\n<p>Besides the workforce cuts, hiring and travel freezes were also implemented, and that includes the mayor&#8217;s trips off-island. \u201cWe&#8217;re struggling but we&#8217;re making good with whatever we have,\u201d said Dela Cruz.<\/p>\n<p>He also disclosed yesterday the relocation of the CNMI&#8217;s Department of Finance office on Tinian to the Department of Land and Natural Resources office. The transfer was due to the unpaid and increasing rental fees, amounting to $2,500 monthly. Dela Cruz said the government is behind in its rent for more than a year now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe moved it to the DLNR office today to stop the government bleeding,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Moneth Deposa Reporter Mayor Ramon Dela Cruz disclosed yesterday that he plans to relocate&#8230;<\/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-17001","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\/17001","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=17001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}