Gov. Eloy S. Inos vetoed a line item from a recently passed bill by Saipan lawmakers, for not describing a \u201cspecific and public purpose\u201d for its appropriation.<\/p>\n
Inos returned House Local Bill 18-63, D2, approved and disapproved in part, in a letter to Saipan and Northern Island Legislative Delegation and the House of Representatives on Dec. 31.<\/p>\n
The bill would appropriate $3.672 million from revenues to be generated from poker fees for fiscal year 2015. Inos vetoed line-item Section 2(B)(2) which set \u201c$200,000 to be equally distributed to each Precinct.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inos wrote that all of the line items in the bill are for \u201cspecific and public purposes\u201d as required by law, except for the vetoed line item.<\/p>\n
He said this line-item \u201cmerely states that \u2018$200,000 to be equally distributed to each Precinct.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He explained that \u201ca precinct is not an entity or program upon which funds can be bestowed upon,\u201d unlike, for example, the Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance which was appropriated $3 million by the bill.<\/p>\n
Inos also said that the item does not state a specific purpose or any purpose at all for what the expenditure authority is to use the funds for.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis makes it impossible for the expenditure authority to determine whether the funds are being extended for a proper and public purpose as required by law,\u201d Inos\u2019 stated.<\/p>\n
Because of these reasons, Inos returned the bill approved and disapproved in part.<\/p>\n
HLB 18-63 allocates $3.1 million for SHEFA, with $100,000 of that for SHEFA operations.<\/p>\n
The bill also allocates $105,000 to patients of the Medical Referral Program who have already expended their $50,000 limit; $75,000 to the Saipan Little League Baseball Association; $50,000 for the Tipieew Cultural Village; $30,000 for the Saipan Zoning Office; $30,000 for the paving of a section of Mt. Tapochau Road; $20,000 for the 2015 Liberation Day activities; $15,000 for the 31st Annual Flame Tree Arts Festival; $12,000 for the procurement of two Port-A-Cool 36\u201d evaporator cooler units; $10,000 for the NMI Crime Stoppers; $5,000 for the Agricultural Fair; and $5,000 for the Saipan International Fishing Tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Eloy S. Inos vetoed a line item from a recently passed bill by Saipan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[65,271,689],"class_list":["post-188710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-house","tag-liberation-day","tag-shefa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188710","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}