The House and Senate have set emergency sessions for today, Wednesday, to pass measures intended to ensure the \u201clegality\u201d of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres\u2019 authority to reprogram funds to pay CNMI retirees\u2019 25 percent pension payments, according to Senate president Francisco Borja (Ind-Tinian) and House vice speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan).<\/p>\n
The new measures come in the wake of the Settlement Funds\u2019 refusal, and returned check, last Friday, to pay off these pension payments using funds that Torres reprogrammed using his authority under last year\u2019s budget act and emergency powers extended throughout the months after Typhoon Soudelor and the fiscal crisis sustained after the massive network outage last July.<\/p>\n
The Settlement Fund, citing its duties as an extension of the U.S. district court, believes this continued reprogramming authority \u201cis not appropriate,\u201d that the funds serve no \u201cpublic purpose,\u201d and have asked for an \u201cauthorized appropriation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawmakers and administration officials disagree, however, and have drafted measures, with the help of the Attorney General\u2019s Office, to guarantee that this dispute, which left over 3,000 retirees bereft of their expected payments last Friday, does not happen again.<\/p>\n
The new measures \u201cwill allow the governor to use his reprogramming authority to pay for the 25 percent\u201d pension, vice speaker Deleon Guerrero told reporters yesterday.<\/p>\n
Another bill \u201cwill legalize what the Ad Litem [Trustee Joyce Tang] claimed was an illegal payment,\u201d added Deleon Guerrero. <\/p>\n
The bill will legalize \u201cwhat was sent over there [to the Fund]. And any future payments from that source would be legal,\u201d Deleon Guerrero said. This \u201cwould accommodate the Ad Litem\u2019s concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
He confirmed the bills would be acted on today, in the emergency session set for this morning.<\/p>\n
\u2018Cure ambiguities\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n One draft bill, copies of which were obtained by Saipan Tribune yesterday, \u201cspecifically authorizes\u201d the governor to reprogram Executive Branch appropriations to pay for the 25 percent pension payments.<\/p>\n The draft bill reiterates the position of Capitol Hill officials that funding for the 25 percent pension payments serves \u201ca public purpose\u201d for which the governor can reprogram funds, a position that the Settlement Fund has disputed in letters to the governor.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Act is intended to remove any doubt,\u201d the draft bill states.<\/p>\n The second draft bill, copies of which were also obtained by Saipan Tribune yesterday, says there is a \u201cneed to clarify that taxes allocated\u201d to the Settlement Fund may be used to fund the 25 percent pension payments.<\/p>\n Current law moves 20 percent of funds collected from hotel occupancy taxes and 30 percent of funds collected beverage container taxes to the Settlement Fund, and provides that the money may be used to fund benefit increases provided under public law. <\/p>\n After funding these benefits, the taxes may be applied to any unfunded obligation the Commonwealth has to fund. <\/p>\n The draft bill amends current law \u201cto specify that taxes allocated to the Fund may be expended to fund retirees\u2019 25 percent pension payments.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis Act is intended to cure any ambiguities that there may be with regard to the Secretary of Finance\u2019s authority to apply taxes due to the Fund to fund\u201d these payments, the bill states. <\/p>\n \u201cTo ensure that the law is consistent with the Legislature\u2019s intent to allow taxes to be sued for this purpose, the Legislature specifically finds that retroactive application of this Act is necessary and appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n Borja told Saipan Tribune yesterday that the House and Senate would be acting on the concerns of Tang.<\/p>\n \u201cTo ensure that she doesn\u2019t question anymore the money transferred,\u201d Borja explained. \u201cThat will clarify a lot of her concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n Borja believes they \u201chave been doing [the reprogramming of funds] legally\u201d but \u201cto not further delay the disbursement\u201d of the pension payments, they \u201cwant to meet half way\u201d so it does not happen again.<\/p>\n Saipan and Northern Island Delegation lawmakers also passed a bill yesterday to, among others, provide the Torres administration with some $1.8 million to fund the pension payment shortfall.<\/p>\n However, this is seen as a stop-gap measure that lawmakers from both the upper and lower house believe could have been prevented with better communication and numbers between the Department of Finance, Legislature, and the Settlement Fund, which has been lamenting these concerns over the last year\u2014or\u2014an amendment to casino law to apply the annual license fee of $15 million in full to the 25 percent pension payment and ease the expected shortfall.<\/p>\n Capitol Hill officials appear to be unified on the \u201clegality\u201d of Torres\u2019 actions to provide for the retirees.<\/p>\n \u201cI have yet to see a court order that it is illegal,\u201d said Rep. Antonio Sablan (Ind-Saipan), during a SNILD meeting yesterday. Sablan believes Torres\u2019 actions was not a question of whether there was money for funding as the amount provided was there, and that it was important for constituents to understand this.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is the position of our elected Attorney General that\u201d the reprogramming \u201cis within the scope of authority granted to\u201d Torres under the budget act, Sablan said, and unless the reprogramming is \u201cdeclared unconstitutional,\u201d \u201cit is incumbent on the trustee,\u201d Joyce Tang, to disburse the money. <\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot subject our retirees to this every 15 days,\u201d Sablan added.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 25 percent portion of the pension of our retirees,\u201d Rep. Angel Demapan (R-Saipan) also said, \u201cis clearly not under the jurisdiction of the settlement agreement entered into by the government and sanctioned by the Legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe 25 percent portion of the pension is a function of the NMI Retirement Fund, not the Settlement Fund,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Remaining issues<\/strong><\/p>\n The Settlement Fund has prioritized the importance of the 75 percent payments over the 25 percent.<\/p>\n Sen. Sixto Igisomar (R-Saipan), when asked if he agreed, said this \u201cwas true.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Settlement Fund does not care about anything else. They are obligated,\u201d he said. \u201c[Tang\u2019s] position is that she is overseeing the 75 percent compensation obligation to retirees.\u201d<\/p>\n The 25 percent, on the other hand, is a commitment from the administration and the Legislature. \u201cThat is why the casino act went into play,\u201d Igisomar said, referring to the $15 million annual casino license fee allocated to these pension payments.<\/p>\n But Igisomar disclosed that the administration is considering \u201ca change\u201d in this process. <\/p>\n \u201cIf the Trustee is having potential issues with the 25 percent disbursement, [the administration] is saying they might as well take over, and handle the 25 percent disbursement themselves,\u201d Igisomar said.<\/p>\n He added this was an option to be \u201cdiscussed further.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The House and Senate have set emergency sessions for today, Wednesday, to pass measures intended…<\/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":[256,152,38,9755],"class_list":["post-221094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-casino","tag-deleon-guerrero","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-settlement-funds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221094","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=221094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}