{"id":376725,"date":"2022-09-28T06:06:40","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T20:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=376725"},"modified":"2022-09-28T06:06:40","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T20:06:40","slug":"sablan-oag-says-no-enactment-of-law-required-over-arpa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/sablan-oag-says-no-enactment-of-law-required-over-arpa\/","title":{"rendered":"Sablan: OAG says no enactment of law required over ARPA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Sen. Vinnie F. Sablan (R-Saipan), middle, conducts a slide presentation yesterday afternoon about the Senate\u2019s version of the budget bill for the government\u2019s operation in fiscal year 2023. Also in the photo are Sens. Francisco Q. Cruz (R-Tinian), to Sablan\u2019s left and Karl King-Nabors (R-Tinian). (FERDIE DE LA TORRE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sen. Vinnie F. Sablan (R-Saipan) disclosed yesterday afternoon that the Office of the Attorney General provided a letter to the House of Representatives, stating that for the Commonwealth to receive funds under the American Rescue Plan Act, an enactment of Commonwealth law is not required.<\/p>\n

At the senators\u2019 press conference in the Senate chamber, Sablan said with the OAG\u2019s letter, it was then that the Executive Branch and the Torres administration went ahead and started to expend ARPA funds in satisfying the requirements of the ARPA spending plan that was approved by the U.S. Treasury.<\/p>\n

In the slide presentation, Sablan noted that the House also had a separate legislation last year to appropriate ARPA funds in its entirety when the ARPA funds were initiated and given to the CNMI government.<\/p>\n

Aside from Sablan, Sens. Karl King-Nabors (R-Tinian) and Francisco Q. Cruz (R-Tinian) also held a slide presentation about the Senate\u2019s budget bill version during the press briefing. Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee chair Sen. Victor B. Hocog (R-Rotra) also explained what the Senate and the House\u00a0 did in coming up with their respective budget bills.<\/p>\n

Senate President Jude U. Hofschneider (R-Tinian) explained why they called a press conference as he also thanked minority members Sens. Teresita A. Santos (Ind-Rota) and Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero (D-Saipan) for voting \u201cyes\u201d on the Senate\u2019s budget bill version.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough they did have some questions, at the end of the day they agreed with the product of the Fiscal Affairs Committee,\u201d Hofschneider said.<\/p>\n

Sablan said Torres identified $32 million in ARPA funds in the FY 2023 budget, but the House allocated an additional $20 million totaling $52 million in ARPA funds.<\/p>\n

Sablan said Finance Secretary David DLG Atalig clarified during the Senate session\u00a0 that the $20 million allocated\u00a0 by the House\u00a0 from the Medicaid\u00a0 reimbursement is no longer available.<\/p>\n

He said funds were used to issue a second stimulus\u00a0 for the CNMI, which was highly encouraged and supported by the House\u00a0 to provide additional assistance in the community.<\/p>\n

Sablan said Atalig also acknowledged that\u00a0 it is a requirement for the state to submit a spending plan, for reporting purposes, to the U.S. Treasury on a quarterly basis detailing how funds are being spent in the Commonwealth in accordance with the ARPA guidelines.<\/p>\n

Saipan Tribune will publish more information about the Senate press conference today, Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Vinnie F. Sablan (R-Saipan) disclosed yesterday afternoon that the Office of the Attorney General…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":376726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376725","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}