NMI stands to lose over $3M

The CNMI stands to lose more than $3 million in federal funding under the proposed fiscal year 2018 budget blueprint released by President Trump last week. Funding were either cut or eliminated in key areas like community development block grants and Environmental Protection Agency state grants that could have a huge impact on the Commonwealth.

Nine programs would be eliminated and four more would have huge cuts under Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposal.

The proposed FY 2018 budget—dubbed by the White House as “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again”–slashed $54 billion from other domestic programs, with the money going to the Pentagon for defense.

There’s, however, a bit of good news as Trump’s 2018 budget proposal gives a $1-billion increase for Title I education grants. Title I of the Elementary and Education Act of 1965 provides financial assistance to educational agencies and schools that have high numbers or percentages of children from low-income families to ensure that all will meet challenging state academic standards.

Figures provided by the Office of Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) showed that community development block grants, or CDBG, would be eliminated. That would cost the CNMI $984,846 in federal grants.

CDBG is one of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s longest-running funding programs that support local housing community development—low-cost housing and anti-poverty programs—and other infrastructure development. It is also being eyed to help lessen the infrastructure cost of hosting the 2021 Pacific Mini Games.

The Northern Marianas Housing Corp. helped the Northern Marianas Sports Association in getting close to $1 million in CDBG funding for the resurfacing project of the track surface of the Oleai Sports Complex. NMSA received $905,382: $772,638 in 2014 and $132,744 in 2015.

The Bureau of Environmental Coastal Quality would only be receiving $1,150,336 from the EPA’s state grants under the proposed 2018 budget. BECQ, in 2016, received a $2,091,520 grant that funded their programs and personnel resources in going up against polluters.

The CNMI Motherhead/Fatherhead, Five Pillars (Utt) of the Carolinian Community, and programs for CNMI veterans would lose $346,690 with the proposed elimination of the funding program for the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Home Investment Partnerships, which provide and help build low-income housing for low-income tenants, would lose $326,477 if it gets eliminated while the State Homeland Security would be slashed $213,500—the money usually used to prepare and recover in any form of terrorism and types of natural disasters like typhoons or earthquakes.

The Low Income Energy Assistance Program, which helps low-income families pay their power and water usage bills, is proposed to be eliminated. The CNMI could lose $210,604.

The Weatherization Assistance Program that retrofit homes to save energy would lose $176,764 if eliminated while all outlying areas under the Innovation and Opportunity Act grants that provide job training and employment services would be cut by $95,231.

The budget blueprint also proposes to eliminate the Emergency Food and Shelter program, an administered aid by the Federal Emergency Management Administration. In 2016, FEMA awarded local boards $79,820 to provide food, lodging, short-term rental or mortgage assistance, utilities assistance, and equipment to those in need.

The CNMI would lose $85,668 under the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, money that help pay the college education of 138 students from the CNMI while the Community Oriented Policing, which pays for two local officers, would be cut by $34,340.

The East-West Center, which facilitates the academic training and research in Pacific studies, and the Micronesian Legal Services Corp., which provides legal aid to 27,209 individuals including 1,418 seniors and 15 veterans, are also being proposed to be eliminated.

Sablan, however, said that CNMI schools would receive $12.2 million next year, an increase of $5.2 million, in Trump’s budget. “I was also glad to see that the Trump budget protects Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund monies administered by the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“The funding formula change in those two programs, won in the years since I came into office, has brought our islands $59 million in new infrastructure money.”