Rep. Blas Jonathan “B.J.” T. Attao (Ind-Saipan) is concerned about the payment of retirees\u2019 pensions from the casino license fee, saying the actual distribution of the fee as stated in Public Law No. 18-56 is not enough to make up for the 25 percent cut in the pension of all government retirees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Commonwealth needs approximately $17 million to pay in full the 25 percent reduction that was included in the Settlement Fund. Additionally, the Commonwealth will not receive the license fee on the fifth year, which means that retirees will again lose the entire 25 percent of their pension,\u201d Attao explained.<\/p>\n
He said House Bill 19-21 that he earlier introduced \u201creplaces the fifth year with the 40th year of license payment, which will be a plus for the casino [since] GDP calculations and the dollar value in the future will increase and a plus for the retirees as their pensions will be a continuous payment from the license fee.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI introduced HB 19-21 to provide for the actual intent of PL 18-56, which was to address the 25 percent reduction of CNMI government retirees,\u201d Attao said.<\/p>\n
Explaining the license fee distribution, Attao said the distribution of the first $30 million includes approximately $25 million to make up for the 25 percent that was deducted from the retirees\u2019 pensions to include the back payment for fiscal year 2014, $2 million to the First Senatorial District, $2 million to the Second Senatorial District, and $1 million to the Third Senatorial District.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you can see, just the initial investment of $30 million has been totally drawn down and from here on out, should HB 19-21 not be enacted, just the 25 percent for retirees cannot be afforded with the $15 million annual license fee,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said his concern is that \u201cretirees\u2019 pension payment as stated above will not be the complete 25 percent, which is the intent of Public Law No. 18-56.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe retirees will again suffer the reduction in their pension because the fee distribution will not be enough. Retirees shouldn’t have to worry about their pension payment today. We as a people of today should take care of the problems of yesteryears so we can move forward to provide for today’s solutions and tomorrow’s security,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also said the CNMI has \u201ca tool in Public Law 18-56 which is being fine-tuned by House Bill 19-021 to direct the fees for the retirees right now so we can remove that problem from our tables.\u201d<\/p>\n
HB19-21 is currently with the House Committee on Ways and Means, Attao said.<\/p>\n
The law mandates a yearly $15-million license fee from the exclusive casino license holder, Best Sunshine International, Ltd.<\/p>\n
HB 19-21 noted, however, that this annual license fee collection is short of what is actually needed to address the pension reduction, which is estimated to cost $17 million.<\/p>\n
HB 19-21 intends to amend PL 18-56 \u201cto dedicate the entire license fee collections for the payment of retirees\u2019 pension reduction.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rep. Blas Jonathan “B.J.” T. Attao (Ind-Saipan) is concerned about the payment of retirees\u2019 pensions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[256,26,1860,194],"class_list":["post-201614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-casino","tag-cnmi","tag-hb","tag-house-bill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201614","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\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201614\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}