The Commonwealth Office of Transit Authority thanks Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan (Ind-Saipan) for recommending federal funds for the CNMI that includes $306,000 under the U.S. Federal Transit Administration for fiscal year 2015.<\/p>\n
COTA administrator Thomas Camacho said the additional funding would \u201csurely reinstate\u201d the funding level of $1.1 million that would be \u201capplied toward the operating expenses\u201d of the Saipan Fixed-Flex Route and Paratransit Systems including Rota and Tinian, which are scheduled to go online by 2015.<\/p>\n
Camacho noted that COTA, as the grant recipient under FTA, received lower funding in fiscal years 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n
According to him, COTA received a reduced award from $1.1 million in fiscal year 2012 Urbanized Area Formula Grant to $816,058 in fiscal year 2013 Rural Formula Apportionment.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, COTA\u2019s fiscal year 2014 rural grant had another decrease to $812,306,\u201d Camacho said.<\/p>\n
Funding reduction<\/strong><\/p>\n Camacho said funding level was reduced due to the U.S. 2010 Census results, which affected FTA programs. <\/p>\n \u201cThe CNMI population dropped from 69,221 in 2000 to 53,883 in 2010. This represented a decrease of 22.2 percent from the 2000 Census population,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Camacho said that, according to the 2010 Census and FTA formula grants, the 2010 Census Urbanized Areas descriptions resulted in four areas that were urbanized based on the 2000 Census. Going under the 50,000 threshold qualified an area as urbanized in 2010 and included Saipan and other states.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, Virgin Islands, Guam, and the CNMI agreed to have Census measure urbanization within their territories but asked that, regardless of the results, all urban areas be classified as \u2018urban cluster,\u2019 which are considered to be under the FTA,\u201d Camacho said.<\/p>\n The results showed no urbanized areas identified in the CNMI and an urban area with a 139,000 population in Guam will be treated as \u201crural\u201d for purposes of FTA\u2019s programs.<\/p>\n Results also included an urban area with an over 50,000 population in Virgin Islands that was \u201cignored\u201d by FTA as the statute provides for the entire U.S. Virgin Islands to be treated as an urbanized area for purposes of FTA programs.<\/p>\n Rural designation<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAs a result, the CNMI is considered \u2018rural\u2019 for purposes of FTA programs, although the CNMI\u2019s entire population is over 53,000,\u201d Camacho said.<\/p>\n According to him, FTA does not currently have the statutory authority to grant administrative exceptions to allow operating assistance where it is not eligible under the current law.<\/p>\n \u201cCongress took action to grandfather areas that were impacted by Census in 1990 and 2000, to phase in the adverse impacts over several years,\u201d Camacho said. \u201cCongress could do that again. The rules regarding operating assistance eligibility could be changed independent of Census considerations by reauthorization which Congress is currently debating.\u201d<\/p>\n Camacho noted that Congress should consider and give federal grantor agencies the authority to waive the 20 percent federal matching requirement to consolidate all FTA grants.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need the capability and flexibility to manage and operate our public transit system, especially when our Mariana Islands are so isolated from the mainland U.S. and separated by water,\u201d Camacho said.<\/p>\n Camacho said he is seeking Sablan\u2019s and his office\u2019s help in seeking a similar special treatment as the U.S Virgin Islands for the CNMI for purposes of the FTA program.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile COTA \u2018understands\u2019 treating the CNMI as \u2018urban cluster\u2019 for purposes of federal funding that extended some federal programs beneficial to the CNMI, it is unfortunate that the \u2018urban cluster\u2019 negatively impacted public transportation funding for the CNMI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As an example, Camacho said that if the CNMI had been designated as an \u201curban area\u201d instead of an \u201curban cluster,\u201d the CNMI could have availed and qualified under the 2013 and 2014 FTA Ferry Boat million dollar program.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, only urbanized areas or section 5307 recipients are qualified to apply to fund their existing or new ferry system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Commonwealth Office of Transit Authority thanks Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan (Ind-Saipan) for recommending federal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,460,51,176],"class_list":["post-36106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-cota","tag-guam","tag-virgin-islands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36106","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}