{"id":385961,"date":"2023-02-23T06:04:22","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T20:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=385961"},"modified":"2023-02-23T06:04:22","modified_gmt":"2023-02-22T20:04:22","slug":"cpa-could-raise-fees-due-to-lack-of-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cpa-could-raise-fees-due-to-lack-of-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"CPA could raise fees due to lack of funding"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kimberlyn King-Hinds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Because federal funds previously allocated to the agency is running thin, there is a likelihood that the Commonwealth Ports Authority will have to raise its fees for all those doing business with CNMI airports.<\/p>\n

In an interview with CPA chair Kimberlyn King-Hinds, she said that CPA is looing at exhausting all its American Rescue Plan Act funding by the end of this fiscal year and, if not remedied, the CNMI will suffer one way or another.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is talking about the fact that the CPA has been in austerity even before the pandemic. That\u2019s a reflection of the state of the economy. That is an issue that people need to start talking about. At the end of this fiscal year, we would have exhausted federal funds. This year\u2019s budget is being mostly supported by ARPA funds and we have stretched it out as much as we can. The worst-case scenario is we lay off people and we operate at a very limited level. If we don\u2019t find a remedy for our current situation, its either that or we pass on the charges. The alternative is it\u2019s going to be very expensive to land here and it\u2019s not going to be enticing to airlines,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

King-Hinds explained that if CPA does not find another funding source after ARPA has been completed exhausted, airline partners and the traveling public will be impacted. This, in turn, will ultimately affect the CNMI\u2019s tourism recovery.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does this mean for CPA in the next year? We are going to have to pass off whatever charges to our airline partners and the traveling public, which is going to make it very expensive to travel to the CNMI. That\u2019s going to be a challenge for the tourism industry and we\u2019re try to avoid that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow we\u2019re going about it is we\u2019re reaching out to our federal partners, much like at the beginning of the pandemic, saying that we are not similarly situated as places like Hawaii and Guam who have alternative source markets. We only have three; China which remains offline and makes up 41% of our market; we have Japan, which is still recovering; and we have Korea,\u201d King-Hinds added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because federal funds previously allocated to the agency is running thin, there is a likelihood…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":385963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[124],"class_list":["post-385961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-cpa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385961","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}