{"id":410715,"date":"2024-06-20T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=410715"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"CCC-board-asks-House-committee-to-approve-3M-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/CCC-board-asks-House-committee-to-approve-3M-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"CCC board asks House committee to approve $3M budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Commonwealth Casino Commission has asked the House Standing Committee on Ways and Means to approve its budget request of $3.15 million which is to be paid by casino investor Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC.<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday, CCC board of director chair Edward DeLeon Guerrero submitted a budget proposal in the amount of $3.15 million before the Way and Means Committee for approval.<\/p>\n

Pursuant to Public Law 19-24, CCC must submit a budget proposal (which will be paid by operator) whether IPI has the means to do so or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder Public Law 19-24, $3 million which increased by 5% each year, is earmarked for the CCC but we need the legislature to appropriate it every year. CCC must justify how it will be spent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

DeLeon Guerrero explained that the public law was designed so that the operator was the one to pay, not taxpayers.<\/p>\n

However, during the hearing, a heated exchange arose between DeLeon Guerrero and Rep. Marissa Flores (D-Saipan) who stated that she was not comfortable appropriating over $3 million to CCC when other agencies are struggling too.<\/p>\n

DeLeon Guerrero, in response, clarified that the funds they are requesting doesn\u2019t come from the general government fund but from IPI.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not coming from the source that you have control over,\u201d DeLeon Guerrero said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, DeLeon Guerrero shared that despite all the negative experience everyone has had with IPI, IPI performed remarkably well on the gaming side of things.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere they really messed up was in the non-gaming area (labor, construction) and I keep hearing rumors about money laundering, but I have not seen to date any indictment against IPI regarding money laundering for gaming. We are not responsible for labor, we are not responsible for [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], we have no authority over non-gaming aspects,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Commonwealth Casino chair Edward DeLeon Guerrero submitted a budget proposal in the amount of $3.15 million before the House Way and Means Committee for approval last Tuesday.<\/p>\n

-KIMBERLY B. ESMORES
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The Commonwealth Casino Commission has asked the House Standing Committee on Ways and Means to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410715","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}