Rep. Tina Sablan (Ind-Saipan) wants the Legislature to have a clearer picture of the financial state of the CNMI government. To that end, she wishes the Torres administration would give out more concrete information about the CNMI\u2019s fiscal state.<\/p>\n
She also has a list of questions that she has for the administration once the House Ways and Means Committee, of which she is a member, begins going over the administration\u2019s proposed budget for fiscal year 2020. <\/p>\n
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres has identified $233.22 million in gross budgetary resources that the government expects to collect next fiscal year\u2014a 9.7- percent drop from the $258.14 million budget last fiscal year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking to start the budget hearings in May. Committee chair Blanco has asked the members to closely study the budget proposal, and start documenting and taking notes. I\u2019m listing some of the questions that I have for the administration. So, we\u2019re ready as soon as the hearing starts,\u201d Sablan told Saipan Tribune in an interview. Blanco refers to committee chair Rep. Ivan A. Blanco (R-Saipan).<\/p>\n
Sablan is one of the minority members of the committee, which helps shape the CNMI government\u2019s budget every fiscal year.<\/p>\n
Two highly destructive storms\u2014Typhoon Mangkhut and Super Typhoon Yutu\u2014hit the CNMI in a one-month span last year, gravely affecting economic activity on the islands, especially on Saipan where tourism was at a standstill for almost two months.<\/p>\n
Sablan said Blanco had asked committee members to go over the budget plan with a fine-toothed comb.<\/p>\n
She said the Finance Department has yet to update the committee on the financial state of affairs of the government in general. \u201cSpecifically, for the special casino gross revenue tax account. That\u2019s one of the questions that the committee submitted to Finance over a month ago. As of Friday, we had not received any update on the current status of that account.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sablan used House Bill 21-37, which would re-appropriate $1.2 million from Public Law 20-62 Section 2(c)(2) to fund the salaries of municipal employees on Tinian, as an example. \u201cLast year, the money was available and appropriated for a Tinian road project. But a lot of things had happened since then. We know money has been moving around between accounts, so I wanted to see some verification in writing that those funds are still there for Tinian\u2019s proposal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, it wasn\u2019t reassuring that all we have are verbal assurances that it is there. It should be there because Tinian has not touched the money yet for the road project. We know that, even in the Legislature, funds had disappeared from our own accounts. So, I think we need some timely, accurate, and truthful reports from Finance on the state of our financial affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added that the Legislature needs concrete proof to back up the government\u2019s optimism that the local economy would rebound. \u201cI have to say that there are members, like myself, that have questions about that optimism. That collections will improve in the remainder of this fiscal year. But if you talk to members of the business community, particularly in the tourism industry, they don\u2019t express that same kind of optimism.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that, if we\u2019re looking at bigger cuts and looking at a bigger shortfall, we need some of that information as soon as possible. We need the administration to be honest about that. If there\u2019s real basis for the optimism they express, we need to see a much clearer justification and the real plan for how we will operate the government for the next six months. What does this mean for the next [fiscal year 2020] budget?<\/p>\n
The problem with the Legislature not getting timely and accurate information has always been a problem, Sablan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the perennial frustration of the Legislature. \u2026This is an ongoing frustration dating back many years. Our lack of access to timely and accurate information about our government\u2019s finances makes it really difficult for us [lawmakers] to do our job.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re supposed to be controlling the government\u2019s purse. But how can we do that if we don\u2019t have any information about what\u2019s actually in that purse? We hope Finance answered all of our questions that Rep. Ralph Yumul, in his capacity as acting Ways and Means chair, sent. And I\u2019m looking forward to seeing it.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rep. Tina Sablan (Ind-Saipan) wants the Legislature to have a clearer picture of the financial…<\/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-297646","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\/297646","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=297646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}