With more cuts and belt-tightening measures expected in the coming months, minority leader Rep. Edwin K. Propst (Ind-Saipan) is urging the administration of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres to break its silence about the true financial state of the CNMI and tell the Legislature about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe administration should stop the nonsense,\u201d Propst said in an interview Tuesday. \u201cIt is shameful that they are not discussing how bad things are.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that his staff did not get paid after his office\u2019s operational funds were cut. \u201cWe have no money to pay the vendors or the overtime of employees after Super Typhoon Yutu. \u2026People who are still travelling at this time of austerity shocks me. \u2026Ranking officials should stop their travel, even the governor.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that the allotment reduction for the Legislature clearly shows that things are financially bad for the CNMI. \u201cThe information on how things are difficult should be privy to all. We did not meet the projections for the budget and this is in large part due to [Imperial Pacific International] not paying the [Business Gross Revenue Tax].\u201d<\/p>\n
In its 2018 annual report, IPI reported revenue of almost $416 million compared to the over $993 million it collected in 2017.<\/p>\n
Propst said the Legislature needs to get information like this to enable lawmakers to do their job of managing the government\u2019s finances. He also lamented the lack of information from the Finance Department. \u201cSo, how much is it [IPI\u2019s profit and the BGRT paid]? Our questions are not yet answered by Finance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m considering asking the House Gaming Committee chair, Rep. Ralph Yumul, to conduct an oversight [hearing] on the Commonwealth Casino Commission. Some people are not being truthful with their statements.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rep. Tina Sablan (Ind-Saipan) said that they have received reports from the Office of Management and Budget that the April allotment of each House of Representatives member would be reduced from $7,500 per month to $3,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorse, the April deposit hadn\u2019t even been made yet and we\u2019re having difficulty getting clear answers from either OMB or Finance about what allotment would come in,\u201d she said. \u201cSome members had to send their staff home [Monday]. The staff were supposed to be paid, but there were insufficient funds to pay them.\u201d<\/p>\n
She described as illegal the reduction in the Legislature\u2019s allocation. \u201c[It\u2019s] way beyond the proportionate across-the-board reduction that the governor ordered. That\u2019s a 60-percent cut to our operational budget for each member.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if the governor is planning to implement a much larger proportionate reduction, he has to notify us first. That\u2019s required by the Planning and Budgeting Act. There\u2019s a process, and that process was not followed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sablan said this is the second time in two months that the Torres administration attempted to impose drastic and \u201cillegal cuts on the Legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Torres administration had proposed a $233.22-million budget for next fiscal year. The amount available for appropriation is $147 million, a 9.7-percent decrease from last fiscal year\u2019s budget of $258 million\u2014a difference of $24.9 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With more cuts and belt-tightening measures expected in the coming months, minority leader Rep. Edwin…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[257],"class_list":["post-297792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-nmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297792","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=297792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}