A lawmaker is proposing a uniform schedule of user fees for the use of public facilities and services in an effort to shore up dwindling coffers of the government.<\/p>\n
Rep. William S. Torres said at present, CNMI agencies do not have standards on which they base their fees — a situation that could deprive the government millions of dollars in potential revenues.<\/p>\n
He is sponsoring a resolution that will call on finance officials as well as the public auditor to work with various departments and agencies in developing government-wide standards in assessing user fees.<\/p>\n
The measure is expected to be approved this week by the House of Representatives since it has already drawn support from several members, according to Mr. Torres.<\/p>\n
“This is a revenue-generating idea,” he told in an interview Friday, noting the government does not even have a way through which it can assess damage when facilities are used by the public.<\/p>\n
Likewise, the proposed uniform schedule of fees can boost the pending legislation granting legal effect to electronic records and signatures on the islands, Mr. Torres said.<\/p>\n
HB 12-226 or “the Commonwealth Electronic Records and Signatures Act ” is the first step taken by the island government to respond to the latest global mode of doing business of electronic commerce and on-line government through the Internet.<\/p>\n
The 14-page measure, which is now up for Senate voting, sets up the scheme here following the signing of similar legislation under the “E-Sign Act” by President Clinton in June of this year.<\/p>\n
“This bill will allow the people to seek government services such as renewal of driver’s license electronically or through on-line. So the CNMI must draw up uniform schedule of fees to prepare for this development,” said Mr. Torres.<\/p>\n
Having a uniform and consistent policy and procedure of fees and cost recovery will be in the best interest of the Commonwealth, he added.<\/p>\n
The finance secretary, procurement chief and the public auditor will be tasked to map out a work plan for the development, consultation and implementation of the proposed schedule of fees, the resolution stated.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers will give these officials 120 days to come up with such a proposal which they must present to the presiding officers of the Legislature and an oral presentation conducted prior to target implementation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A lawmaker is proposing a uniform schedule of user fees for the use of public facilities and services in an effort to shore up dwindling coffers of the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54848","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\/54848","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=54848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}