The House of Representatives majority members accused Friday Gov. Ralph DLG Torres of employing deceptive tactics and misinforming the public by not telling the whole story about the House\u2019s version of the budget for the government\u2019s operations for Fiscal Year 2023, as they insisted that the Legislature has the authority to appropriate American Rescue Plan Act funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At a press conference held in the House chamber, House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Donald M. Manglona (Ind-Rota) said they set the press conference to go over actions taken by the committee and to clear up some of the misinformation that is being spread around by the Torres administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would like to put up the facts and let the people decide who\u2019s telling the truth,\u201d said Manglona,\u00a0 who is the author of the House budget bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Torres said Saturday that if the House majority members insist they have the authority to appropriate American Rescue Plan money, then why it\u2019s already a year now that they have not appropriated and spent ARPA money.<\/p>\n
Standing by his and his legal counsel\u2019s statement that appropriating ARPA money is unconstitutional and illegal, Torres dared the majority to go ahead and appropriate and spend ARPA money.<\/p>\n
Manglona said some majority members would give a breakdown of the deceptive tactics the administration took to try and divide the House.<\/p>\n
In discussing how the committee approached the budget, Manglona said they started off by looking at all unfilled vacancies throughout the Commonwealth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said they noticed a significant\u00a0 amount of these vacancies\u00a0 in the governor\u2019s April 1, 2022 budget submission and allowed the administration to revise the budget to include any vacancies that will be filled.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The chairman said on July 1, 2022, or three months later, they still saw the same figures in the governor\u2019s revised budget submission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said they decided to remove these vacancies, these positions mainly because they were unfunded but also they felt that there may have not been a need for these positions. Secondly,\u00a0 Manglona said, they wanted to ensure a clearly\u00a0 identified source of funding that was allocated to cover the government retirees\u2019 25% pension and the Medicaid matching, which was done through the general fund\u00a0 because these cannot be covered by ARPA funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter these two issues were addressed, we simply took what was left and allocated it to all remaining personnel\u00a0 and divided up these funds going through each department\u00a0 and agency that the committee\u00a0 felt needed operational funds in order to provide services,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Manglona said during their budget hearing with Finance Secretary David DLG Atalig, the committee was assured that when they got the revised budget submission, the operations budget for the departments and agencies would be addressed. However, he said, they found that the operational budget was still zeroed out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could not in good conscience pass a budget that provided nothing at all for operations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The chairman said the committee was then\u00a0 challenged to identify funding and provide funds to each agency so that they have something to work with.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said prior to the ARPA funds coming into the CNMI, he introduced legislation that would require appropriation to be done through the Legislature as this is what many states throughout the U.S. have done.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to maintain that the Legislature\u00a0 has authority to appropriate\u00a0 these funds especially if it has been identified in the budget submission,\u201d Manglona said.<\/p>\n
He said Volume 4 of ARPA funds will be used\u00a0 for the upcoming fiscal year so the committee basically uses those funds and reallocates them to come up with a whole budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The chairman said the reason they did not pass the budget earlier\u00a0 on is because the committee took due diligence to ensure that the information that they received is accurate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He cited that it was the Legislature that alerted the administration of the overpayment that was set aside to the Settlement Fund, which in turn freed up $3 million that were able to be allocated toward the agencies that needed it the most.<\/p>\n
In addition, Manglona said, it has always been a practice of the Legislature\u00a0 to identify the areas in which Compact Impact funds are to be allocated, but it was not mentioned anywhere in the budget submission where to allocate these funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said the committee once again took the reasonable approach and allocated these funds to the agencies.<\/p>\n
Manglona said the administration\u00a0 accuses the House majority of taking several actions that are unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
However, he said, this is just the Torres administration\u2019s attempt\u00a0 to discredit the work that was done and the research that they took\u00a0 to ensure that their actions were within authority.<\/p>\n
Rep. Corina L. Magofna (Ind-Saipan) said with Torres\u2019 recent statements that the House majority\u2019s actions were unconstitutional, inappropriate, and illegal, she was tempted to call him out on his behavior, which she described as \u201cchildish.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Magofna said, she quickly realized, re-focused, and reminded herself that she is a congresswoman.<\/p>\n
\u201cGov. Torres, our people deserve the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Therefore, I humbly ask that you please stop the lies and stop misinforming them about the budget because they deserve better,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Magofna said the governor\u2019s accusation about the House passing an illegal budget bill is simply unfounded, baseless, and has no merit.<\/p>\n
She said she personally would never engage in such illegal acts that would place her in a precarious situation, jeopardize her livelihood, and most importantly risk losing her freedom and being taken away from her children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to the unfair accusation, Magofna said, Torres not only insulted the House majority, but also the House minority in the process because the budget bill was passed unanimously by all House members present.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou literally threw your fellow Republicans under the bus by inferring that they participated and committed an illegal act on the passage of the budget bill,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Magofna said based on their reading and understanding of the law, with the concurrence of the House legal counsel, the members of the committee interpreted and considered the ARPA funds to be \u201cadditional revenues.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThus, we proceeded to allocate and appropriate the funds accordingly,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Magofna said Torres asked \u201chow did I lie?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell governor, ask and you shall receive. And just remember, arrogance will get you in trouble every time,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rep. Vicente Camacho (D-Saipan) said his question to the governor is, if he is not lying, who is lying for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. governor, if you don\u2019t know who in your Cabinet\u00a0 received\u00a0<\/p>\n
salary increases, then you\u2019re being misinformed by your own\u00a0 executive body,\u201d Camacho said.<\/p>\n
Camacho, however, did not answer Torres\u2019 dare to\u00a0 identify who in the cabinet received salary increases as he (Camacho) had stated in the House majority press release.<\/p>\n
The representative said this back and forth isn\u2019t doing any good.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Governor, can you help us identify funding so we can get the budget bill done,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rep. Leila Staffler (D-Saipan) said they want the people to understand that the governor is misinforming the public by leaving information out by not telling the full story.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As she explained how they made the appropriations, Staffler said by doing the switching, they were able to meet those obligations and also have operations allocated to each of the agencies, which was also not budgeted by the governor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Staffler said the money that they freed up is not indicated in the governor\u2019s graphic that was published in the newspaper.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you\u2019re seeing is the local money that we moved from that department to be able to pay for those two very important areas\u00a0 in our budget. What is not being told to the public\u00a0 is that what was replaced to make sure that those negatives go back to positive is that we use ARPA money,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Staffler said the administration is claiming that the Legislature has no authority to use ARPA money to do that kind of process. \u201cBut as stated by Rep. Magofna, it is actually an allowable process for the Legislature to do when there is additional\u00a0 revenue the Legislature can appropriate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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