The Northern Marianas College has received over $600,000 in new funding as authorized by the CNMI Legislature and the Governor\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Acting Governor Diego T. Benavente approved Friday the reprogramming of $438,251 to cover the payroll needs of NMC personnel up to September this year.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Gov. Juan N. Babauta approved the release of $228,383 to fund NMC\u2019s operations of its newly acquired facility, the La Fiesta complex in San Roque.<\/p>\n
Acting NMC president Antonio V. Deleon Guerrero disclosed the availability of these funds in a media briefing yesterday afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve discussed our situation with the Legislature and the Governor\u2019s Office and they have been willing to come to our aid. So we\u2019re in a lot better position now. We\u2019d be able to make it to the end of the current fiscal year without shutting down any programs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This, he said, would be the message that he and NMC board chair Kimberlyn King-Hinds would be reporting to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges during a meeting this week.<\/p>\n
Guerrero and King-Hinds will be leaving today for California to meet with WASC commissioners on NMC\u2019s compliance with accreditation requirements.<\/p>\n
The college is currently on WASC\u2019s warning status due to its failure to submit annual audit reports on time in the last few years.<\/p>\n
Meantime, in a letter to Deleon Guerrero, Benavente said that, as authorized by House Joint resolution 14-18, the $438,251 would come from the unobligated Tobacco Control Fund.<\/p>\n
He said the Office of Management and Budget will make necessary adjustments to ensure that NMC gets the additional funding.<\/p>\n
He said the money will be disbursed on a biweekly basis per payroll schedule.<\/p>\n
Benavente also said that the OMB will also make the necessary reprogramming of $228,383 for La Fiesta.<\/p>\n
This will be disbursed to NMC in two installments: $100,000, which will be paid immediately to cover the March, April, and May 2004\u2019s operational expenses for La Fiesta.<\/p>\n
The second installment will take place on July 15 to cover for the remaining months up to Sept. 30, 2004.<\/p>\n
The NMC earlier projected to incur a budget shortfall of at least $250,000 by end of the fiscal year.<\/p>\n
The college earlier received some $150,000 from the Governor\u2019s Office to cover for the December 2003, January and February 2004 expenses at La Fiesta. <\/p>\n
Due to lack of budget, the NMC board last month decided to put on hold its Pacific Gateway program and to temporarily shut down its operations of La Fiesta.<\/p>\n
This, however, still allows La Fiesta tenants to continue to operate in the complex.<\/p>\n
NMC said that, of the 24 original tenants, 17 remain in the complex. Most of their contracts expire by the end of December this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Northern Marianas College has received over $600,000 in new funding as authorized by the CNMI Legislature and the Governor\u2019s Office.<\/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-81710","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\/81710","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=81710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}