Rep. Ray Tebuteb (Ind-Saipan) has introduced a bill that would allow the government to satisfy judgments without an appropriation; in short, they should be paid from \u201cany available funds with or without appropriation\u201d from the Legislature.<\/p>\n
Attorney General Joey Patrick San Nicolas told lawmakers early this year that the government\u2019s outstanding and unpaid judgments and settlements is now at more than $27 million, excluding accruing interests.<\/p>\n
Tebuteb\u2019s House Bill 18-143 also allows judgments against the government to be enforced as any other judgment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe purpose of this bill is to make the government responsible for its obligations,\u201d Tebuteb said in his bill.<\/p>\n
The government has been restricted from making settlement of claims and payment of judgments because a legislative appropriation is necessary for such payment.<\/p>\n
Although the law allows the governor to waive the requirement of a legislative appropriation, the governor \u201cdoes not appear to be willing to make such a waiver,\u201d Tebuteb said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJudgments sit for years without the governor making a waiver or requesting an appropriation.\u00a0 Since the government is shielded from the judicial enforcement of judgments, the government has become irresponsible and neglectful in addressing its obligations,\u201d Tebuteb added.<\/p>\n
Based on the OAG\u2019s data provided to the Legislature, the more than $27 million in government\u2019s outstanding and unpaid judgments and settlements go as far back as November 2004.<\/p>\n
Under CNMI law, any final judgment of a court can only be paid if the Legislature appropriates a budget for it.<\/p>\n
There are 17 sets of judgment creditors or claimants on the OAG\u2019s list. Each is owed by the government anywhere from $20,000 to $11.43 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rep. Ray Tebuteb (Ind-Saipan) has introduced a bill that would allow the government to satisfy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26368","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\/26368","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}