In the proposed budget package that Gov. Ralph DLG Torres submitted to the Legislature, he proposes to suspend the earmarks provided in four public laws.<\/p>\n
The proposal is seen to ease the CNMI government\u2019s financial crunch after the islands were hit by two consecutive destructive storms in a span of just almost two months last year.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Mangkhut barreled through Rota in September while Super Typhoon Yutu almost leveled the islands of Saipan and Tinian the following month.<\/p>\n
The statutory mandates that Torres wants suspended for now are outlined in <\/p>\n
\u2022 Public Law 13-38, an act to restrict cigarette smoking;
\n\u2022 Public Law 14-54, nonresident worker fund fees allocated to the Northern Marianas College and Public School System;
\n\u2022 Public Law 15-5, the 10 percent Gaming Jackpot Tax allocated to PSS; and
\n\u2022 Public Law 18-64, an act to gradually increase the tax on cigarettes.<\/p>\n
The Finance Department has identified $233.22 million in gross income the administration expects to collect next fiscal year. The net amount of resources available for appropriation\u2014gross revenue minus statutory earmark\u2014 is $147,135,214.<\/p>\n
The $233.22 million reflects a 9.7-percent decrease from last fiscal year\u2019s record-high budget of $258,139,107\u2014a difference of $24,916,580. <\/p>\n
The local revenue and resources available for appropriation went down by 14.3 percent\u2014from $171,589,677 in fiscal year 2019 to $147,135,214 in fiscal year 2020\u2014or $24,454,463.<\/p>\n
In the letter to legislative leaders, Torres said Mangkhut and Yutu created an enormous impact to the CNMI economy in just 45 days.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CNMI is forced to revert to the hardships of austerity as one of a number of proactive cost-containment measures to stabilize the government\u2019s financial condition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The additional burden of paying for the non-federal cost share in the millions for typhoon response and recovery \u201cwill result in a curtailment of critical public services, forcing our government to readjust our budget [and] possibly affecting services and employment,\u201d said Torres. (Jon Perez)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the proposed budget package that Gov. Ralph DLG Torres submitted to the Legislature, he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297419","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\/297419","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}