Just two months ago, the NMI government disbursed the largest outstanding land compensation payments in history, totaling about $20.7 million.<\/p>\n
The Legislature then appropriated $7.1 million to fulfill the government\u2019s settlement agreement obligations, to pay for the pension of the Commonwealth\u2019s over 3,000 retirees.<\/p>\n
Both are time-sensitive and have court-ordered deadlines. <\/p>\n
And both sources of funding came from the fees and taxes\u2014the business gross revenue tax\u2014paid by Imperial Pacific International.<\/p>\n
Both programs were just among the critical and vital public services that have received additional funding support as a result of Imperial Pacific\u2019s economic and investment contributions.<\/p>\n
So far, IPI has already invested in over half-a-billion dollars in the CNMI. <\/p>\n
This fiscal year, the government is expected to generate its second supplemental budget.<\/p>\n
In enacting last fiscal year\u2019s supplemental budget\u2014Public Law 19-75\u2014 the NMI government identified the largest additional revenue by far. It was an unexpected but much-needed financial lifeline for critical public services and programs.<\/p>\n
It was also for the first time in many years that the government had rolled out a supplemental appropriation. P.L. 19-75 identified $47 million sourced from the business gross revenue tax paid by Imperial Pacific.<\/p>\n
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres signed the supplemental appropriation on Dec. 19, 2016.<\/p>\n
That pushed the government\u2019s overall budget to over $200 million.<\/p>\n
The Torres administration declared it the \u201clargest budget in NMI history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Funding critical programs<\/strong><\/p>\n Records shows that Imperial Pacific, now the largest private sector employer, has helped supplement the government\u2019s need to continually fund critical and essential public services and programs.<\/p>\n Last year alone, a total of 11 critical programs and services received immediate funding support. Among them was the $2 million for Fuel Adjustment Clause Rate Subsidy. It was only last August, pursuant to P.L. 19-54, that it went into effect: each Commonwealth Utilities Corp. residential customer received credits by subsidizing their fuel adjustment charge.<\/p>\n The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. received $7 million to pay its outstanding balance owed CUC.<\/p>\n Additionally, the CNMI\u2019s Medical Referral Program, which continues to assist Saipan patients, received $2 million. The program operates three satellite offices in Guam, Hawaii, and the Philippines. <\/p>\n Of the amount earmarked, $1.6 million was tapped to pay for the outstanding obligations with the Guam Memorial Hospital and $400,000 was used to supplement the operation of the program.<\/p>\n Nine million dollars was appropriated for land compensation \u201cstipulated, consented and\/or other judgments.\u201d<\/p>\n Another $1 million was set aside for the Substance Abuse and Rehabilitation Program to support the Community Guidance Center programs and operations.<\/p>\n A separate $9 million for land compensation payment\u2014the first large tranche of disbursement\u2014was also issued out.<\/p>\n A total of $3.5 million was \u201cequally distributed to pay bonuses to retirees and retirees\u2019 beneficiaries.\u201d<\/p>\n Public education received the largest funding\u2014$10.24 million\u2014providing direct support to the islands\u2019 over-10,000 students.<\/p>\n The Northern Marianas College received $1 million and another $150,000 was earmarked to the Northern Marianas Technical Institute.<\/p>\n Outstanding retroactive lump-sum payment were made to active and inactive employees, whose wages had been frozen.<\/p>\n Imperial Pacific\u2019s contributions have already showed significant positive impact to the local economy, triggering an increase in tax collections across the board, the government declared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just two months ago, the NMI government disbursed the largest outstanding land compensation payments in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[20,26,3534,9661],"class_list":["post-264698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-budget","tag-cnmi","tag-guam-memorial-hospital","tag-imperial-pacific-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264698","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}