{"id":6509,"date":"2012-03-30T06:36:12","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T06:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=6509"},"modified":"2012-03-30T06:36:12","modified_gmt":"2012-03-30T06:36:12","slug":"fitial-cuts-rota-budget-for-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/fitial-cuts-rota-budget-for-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Fitial cuts Rota budget for 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"
Other islands’ funding retained<\/div>\n
By Haidee V. Eugenio
\nReporter<\/div>\n

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s budget plan for fiscal year 2013 includes a cut of some $180,000 from Rota’s budget while maintaining or slightly increasing the budgets of Saipan, Tinian, and the Northern Islands.<\/p>\n

The governor told the four mayors during a closed-door governor’s council meeting yesterday afternoon on Capital Hill that he will be submitting his $102 million budget for fiscal year 2013 to the Legislature today, two days ahead of the April 1 deadline. This is the same amount as fiscal year 2012’s budget.<\/p>\n

Fitial’s budget cut for Rota comes amid his spat with Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota), who has accused the governor of not having an economic recovery plan and of playing politics.<\/p>\n

Fitial had described Rota and Tinian senators as \u201cstupid\u201d for rejecting casino gaming on Saipan and that remark spawned a word war between the governor and Manglona.<\/p>\n

Rota Mayor Melchor Mendiola was \u201cdisappointed\u201d with the budget cut, said Rota Finance director Stacey Atalig, who accompanied the Rota mayor to the meeting with the governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven now, we’re already struggling with the fiscal year 2012 budget. To have a cut of about $180,000 is disappointing. Who is going to be happy about that?\u201d Atalig said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

Rota and Tinian’s fiscal year 2012 budget was over $4.5 million each.<\/p>\n

Atalig said that Rota’s budget under the governor’s plan will be reduced to almost $4.3 million, without a budget for the Rota Guesthouse as the mayor had asked the governor.<\/p>\n

Tinian Mayor Ramon Dela Cruz, in a separate interview, said that Tinian got the same budget as last fiscal year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand the current financial situation, so we asked for the same level. However, for the mayor’s office fulltime employees, it was reduced by two, from 105 to 103. I have to let go of two of my employees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Saipan Mayor Donald Flores separately said that Saipan got a \u201cslight\u201d budget increase of some $9,000, bringing it to $1.88 million in fiscal year 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy that at least there’s a slight increase for Saipan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Northern Islands Mayor Tobias Aldan was represented by his staff at the meeting with the governor.
\nThe Saipan, Tinian, and Rota mayors all asked the governor for \u201cflexibility\u201d on where to spend the money budgeted for them; for example, from personnel to operation and vice versa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor gave the mayors flexibility as long as we keep the expenses within the amount allotted us,\u201d said Flores.<\/p>\n

Press secretary Angel Demapan said the 2013 budget proposal is \u201cvery similar to last fiscal year\u2019s budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, OMB [Office of Management and Budget] has worked closely with each mayor\u2019s office during the budget call period. So there were no lengthy discussions on the figures,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

‘Disaster’<\/strong><\/p>\n

In related news, Senate President Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) said the Retirement Fund crisis started when Fitial’s political party in 2006 passed and signed legislation to suspend government employer contribution to the Fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s the beginning of the disaster,\u201d Manglona told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

He said with a June 15 deadline by Judge Kenneth Govendo for the government to address the problems at the Fund, the governor still does not have a plan to help the Fund or at least a plan to work with both the House and Senate to address these concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t hear the governor addressing the concerns of the Retirement Fund, CHC, CUC, CIP, and other critical issues. But we always hear him talking about politics. That is why I stand by my statement that if he cannot focus on critical issues and restore 80 hours for employees, he should just let Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos take over his post. Inos being a financial expert will at least focus on what’s more important than politics,\u201d Manglona said.<\/p>\n

Press secretary Demapan said it doesn’t make sense that Manglona is now \u201cplacing the blame on a 2006 law\u201d because three years after that, in 2009, \u201cthe Senate president backed the Fitial-Inos tandem and campaigned in support of their proven leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo which does he want people to believe now? He says we need to fix the economy, yet blocks any bill that would. He can\u2019t make up his mind,\u201d Fitial told Saipan Tribune in an email through the press secretary.<\/p>\n

He said he has been working closely with the Fund to find solutions to help preserve it. This is why he is \u201cstrongly backing two initiatives-the Saipan casino and the fee simple sale of public lands currently occupied by major hotels and golf resorts.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes the revenues the CNMI stands to generate from these two initiatives \u201cwould pump in millions of much needed dollars to alleviate the problems with the Fund.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am looking at real long-term solutions because we cannot keep resorting to band-aid solutions. And yet again, Sen. Manglona refuses to support long-term solutions,\u201d Fitial added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Other islands’ funding retained By Haidee V. Eugenio Reporter Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s budget plan…<\/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-6509","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\/6509","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=6509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}