{"id":396091,"date":"2023-07-17T06:06:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-16T20:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=396091"},"modified":"2023-07-17T06:06:00","modified_gmt":"2023-07-16T20:06:00","slug":"palacios-torres-gave-tinian-extra-3-6m-arpa-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/palacios-torres-gave-tinian-extra-3-6m-arpa-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Palacios: Torres gave Tinian extra $3.6M ARPA funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Arnold I. Palacios said Thursday that he fully understands where Tinian and Aguiguan Mayor Edwin P. Aldan is coming from, that about 124 Tinian Mayor\u2019s Office employees will be out of jobs come Oct. 1, 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s not a hell of a lot of funding,\u201d said Palacios in an interview.<\/p>\n

Speaking before the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee\u2019s Fiscal 2024 budget hearing for the Tinian municipality, Aldan had described Palacios\u2019 proposed budget as \u201cunbalanced\u201d and \u201cfrustrating\u201d for the municipality.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Gov. Arnold I. Palacios<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aldan said he has been in politics for over 20 years and that he has never seen a budget proposal that excludes a mayor\u2019s office from the general fund.<\/p>\n

The mayor said the governor\u2019s proposal intends to include $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds that is currently being held in the Tinian Municipal Treasury to cover the difference. He said these funds will not be available on Oct. 1, 2023, as most of the funds have already been allocated.<\/p>\n

Palacios said Thursday that the recommendation of the Office of the Governor\u2019s staff that was preparing the 2024 budget for Tinian and Aguiguan was that the $3.6 million in additional American Rescue Plan Act is not the municipality\u2019s allocation. The governor said that money is additional ARPA that was given to Tinian before then-governor Ralph DLG Torres left office.<\/p>\n

Palacios said he is glad that Aldan put together his spending plan for that money. He said Aldan could use that $3 million to take care of the employees.<\/p>\n

The governor said they are trying to make sure that they balance this 2024 budget.<\/p>\n

He said the Municipality of Rota and Saipan did not get any extra additional ARPA funding like the Municipality of Tinian.<\/p>\n

Palacios pointed out that when he submitted his proposed budget to the Legislature, they certainly went through the process. He said the Legislature also has a process to go through.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see where that comes out. We have to see hopefully before Oct. 1, where the process is, and then we can sit down and take a look at it,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n

Aldan submitted a budget request of $10.7 million, but Palacios\u2019 budget proposal of $4.6 million reflects a significant cut of $6.1 million, equivalent to a cut of 57%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Arnold I. Palacios said Thursday that he fully understands where Tinian and Aguiguan Mayor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":396101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396091","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=396091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}