Torres: CNMI needs the numbers

Bracing for the feared end of the contract worker program in 2019, the administration of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres unveiled plans yesterday to retool the responsibilities of cultural and indigenous offices under the Governor’s Office toward hiring and training local workers—and on the U.S. federal side—build the case for a reform of local-federal tax agreements to include earned income tax credits—benefits that could incentivize workforce participation for those that fear higher incomes would disqualify them from the social safety nets they enjoy.

“We cannot assume that an extension will be granted,” Torres said yesterday in a speech during the Society of Human Resource Management-NMI Chapter monthly membership yesterday at the Pacific Islands Club Saipan.

The administration’s moves to prepare for the impending end of the contract worker program—to ask for federal resources for worker programs, get new tax benefits, among others—will need data to stress the CNMI’s needs. President Barack Obama’s White House has also yet to officially green light or even respond to the request for consultation on the CW issue, and some of these plans would require statutory changes that may be tough to navigate through a polarized U.S. Congress sometimes deaf to needs of a little island chain out in the Pacific.

The plan is to get data to help Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) “build the case” in U.S. Congress, a senior administrative official said yesterday.

The official was referring to, among others, to the American Community Survey, which provides data every year to stateside communities to properly plan investments and services.

Business leader Jim Arenovski said the fact the government is putting in efforts together to address how it approaches the federal government is important. “We need to be able to have our own house in line,” he said. “…We have to exhaust our local labor pool” and “exhaust and find out how what that number is. How many of the locals are eligible and can work and are willing to work.”

“Once we have that information, and the negative effect our economy will be in 2019—those will be powerful numbers for any legislator, or any of the 902 [consultation] negotiators to be able to see that we need their help.”

Torres’ goal is to advocate for increased federal resources from the Executive Branch. This could come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which studies the components that contribute to gross domestic product, or the Bureau of Labor Statistics which provides data that can reveal the extent of the unemployed population.

The latest statistics the CNMI has on its demographics and population was from 2009—during the last Census—but the next set of data would be “created and released one year after we need them,” Torres said.

“We do not have the necessary data,” Torres said in his speech, “nor the access to data that is required to view the complete picture of the effects the end of this [contract worker] transition may bring,”

“We are working to reform the work registration requirement of our social services” to task locals to join the workforce, Torres also said, referring to the local food stamp program.

The CNMI is also statutorily ineligible to receive programs like Wagner-Peyser and Job Corps, which provides federal funding for job training and placement

These programs are “ideally suited for our situation,” Torres said. “This is again a Congressional issue that Congressman Sablan has worked to rectify.”

Torres urged the hiring of personnel outside CW programs; pursue seasonal visas for construction projects; and increase wages to attract local and U.S. eligible workers. This will prepare the CNMI for “whatever outcome 2019 will hold,” Torres said.

“You need to hire locals,” Arenovski said. “Anybody that is not at this point is missing out on a great opportunity because of a great level of opportunities.

“And as we found out just recently, the risk is a little bit lower,” he said, referring to the recent delay in the processing of about 2,800 contract worker permit renewals, which forced business to cut hours and close shop.

Arenovski said that wages are a choice for each individual business to make, but as the CNMI sees the competitive nature of the labor market increase with new investments, they will see a natural increase in the hiring wage of individual companies in order to compete with some of the hotels, casinos, or some of the larger companies that are coming into the CNMI