Lawmakers are incensed about allegedly conflicting reports from the Finance Department on the funding status of a \u201cslush account\u201d that they had tapped to fund several appropriation bills this year.<\/p>\n
Reps. Ralph Yumul (Ind-Saipan) and Edwin K. Propst (Ind-Saipan) want bills they say have been \u201ccollecting dust\u201d at the committee level to move, but were informed during a Monday session by House Ways and Means Committee chair Rep. Antonio Sablan (R-Saipan) that Finance had reported that these funds had been zeroed out.<\/p>\n
Yumul\u2019s House bills 19-35, and 19-36, and Propst\u2019s 19-048 appropriated funds from an \u201calien deportation account\u201d signed into law in late 1990s. They claim that Finance had told them funds are available. This account expired sometime after the mid-2000s, according to the lawmakers.<\/p>\n
The lawmakers\u2019 angst about their inactive bills prompted them to raise the issue during discussion of another bill\u2014from the majority bloc of the House\u2014that was set for first and final reading and eventually passed on Monday.<\/p>\n
Yumul and Propst are minority lawmakers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate Rep. [Angel] Demapan\u2019s bill,\u201d Propst said, \u201cbut let\u2019s not play politics here. Let\u2019s get some other bills moving.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sablan took issue with this, stating that \u201cpeople are getting on Facebook and saying that the chairman of Ways and Means isn\u2019t doing his job\u201d\u2014a thinly veiled barb against Propst, an avid Facebook user.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me just make it straight for everybody this afternoon,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cThe bills that representatives Propst and Yumul are talking about are trying to tap an account that has nothing in it. And that\u2019s coming directly from the secretary of Finance. And so I allow it to gather dust, like they claim. If they think otherwise, then they can bring up the issue with the secretary of Finance. Because I am not going to waste the committee\u2019s time on legislation or appropriation bills that have nothing in their account.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026Let\u2019s stop this thing about the chairman not working or doing his job,\u201d Sablan went on to say. \u201cI just hope that when you guys put together an appropriation bill, then you verify the fund status before you claim we are not working on it. We can all play this social media game but I take my job seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
After further discussion, Sablan said he report these bills out from the committee.<\/p>\n
In an interview after the session, Propst said he found it \u201cinsulting\u201d that Sablan did not inform them of the status of the account.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there were truly zero dollars in that account,\u201d he said, \u201cwhy didn\u2019t he have the common courtesy as a chairman to explain that to us, so he can say that there is no money, so we can question Finance as to why there was $800,000 and then now there is zero dollars. We would like to know where that money went for the deportation fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe point of the matter we were trying to make today was not just Ralph\u2019s bill or my bill. It is the fact that the minority bills are so often sitting, collecting dust and not moving, while they are doing first and final reading for their own bills. How is that fair? These guys have taken $300,000 for their leadership funds\u2014I don\u2019t care what they say about it but that\u2019s fact\u2014and the minority gets zero dollars. We are not asking for the money but why aren\u2019t they sharing at the very least? Or why not give that back and refuse that 67 percent increase. We just got slammed by a typhoon and they\u2019re getting 67-percent increases. [House] Speaker Joe Guerrero has said that\u2019s because the Senate made that amendment and we have to stick to it. The speaker is under no obligation to take that money. He and the leadership have the right to change that and reduce it to what they were getting last year. That\u2019s an insult to everybody not getting a pay raise.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Yumul, his bills tap into Public Law 10-1, which sets up the alien deportation fund. Yumul bills move funds to help agencies like the Department of Public Safety, for example.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll have been verified,\u201d Yumul said. \u201cI verified with Finance, unless Finance is lying to me and not giving me the correct figure. Even with my research with the auditor\u2019s report, there is funding every year after those funds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFinance has to basically come to this chamber and explain to us what they have been doing with the money. We are not putting the chairman on the spot, but like what my colleague said, if there\u2019s money then let [Finance Secretary Larrisa Larson] explain,\u201d Yumul said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s basically a slush account. I am not making it up. There are balances ever year. I am not blowing air.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subpoena<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cShe is very non-responsive to telephone calls, even to email,\u201d Rep. Joseph \u201cLeepan\u201d Guerrero said of Larson. \u201cWe are the lawmakers appropriating funding, and she is not even supportive to even provide us fund status. She\u2019s kind of useless to me, because I can\u2019t work, because she is holding us hostage by not providing us information.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026For her to deny us the privilege to receive funding status is uncalled for. I\u2019ve been sending her emails after emails, she doesn\u2019t respond. I call her up, she doesn\u2019t respond,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope the chairman of Ways and Means will invite\u2026 If she doesn\u2019t show up, then we subpoena her,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n In a statement near press time yesterday, Larson said: \u201cI want to provide clarification on this issue which has caused an understandable level of concern in the CNMI Legislature and with members of our community. This issue has been discussed with the legislators extensively, and I had believed the matter was resolved several months ago.\u00a0 Any and all use of these funds happened prior to my term as secretary of Finance, but as it remains a pressing issue for certain members of the Legislature, I will take the necessary steps to derive the specific details of these expenditures for future concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cOn a larger issue, I completely understand that it is important to have the right information and data to inform our elected representatives, but it does a disservice to the very people who elected them to have this be a distraction from the pressing matters of the present. The reality is that our Legislature needs to actively pursue innovative ideas and policies that will increase the total size of our financial resources and not just pull from outdated funds or treasure hunt in far corners of the general fund balance sheets for resources to fund essential services of the government. It is not my place to wade into the politics of the CNMI Legislature, but for the good of our people, these interpersonal issues in the Legislature should be solved where they start\u2014between the legislators. I have been called and testified many times in front of the Legislature, and I will continue to do so in the future. I am available to respond to formal requests if and when they are made. We are at a critical stage in our goal of economic recovery in the CNMI. It is critical that we continue to work together toward our common goals of finding new sources of revenue to enhance the existing revenue and serve the people of our Commonwealth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lawmakers are incensed about allegedly conflicting reports from the Finance Department on the funding status…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[401,65,67,7308],"class_list":["post-211476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-facebook","tag-house","tag-people","tag-speaker-joe-guerrero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211476","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=211476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}