Proposed budget OKs $218M for autonomous agencies

Public corporations and autonomous agencies have been granted a combined budget authority of $218 million by the proposed appropriation act of fiscal year 2006.

The budget bill, which was passed by the Senate on Tuesday, granted the budget request of each of the Commonwealth’s eight independent agencies.

House Bill 14-371 indicated that the agencies should not exceed their budget authority or their maximum allowed full-time employees without specific approval by the Legislature through a joint resolution.

The NMI Retirement Fund has the biggest authority among the autonomous agencies. The Fund has a spending authority of $103.24 million, with only $1.28 million available for salaries and benefits of 27 full time employees.

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has a budget of $83.3 million. About $13.66 million of this amount is reserved for compensation of 378 employees, while the remaining $69.6 million allocated to other non-personnel, operating expenses.

An $8.57-million budget has been approved for the CNMI Government Health and Life Insurance, including $310,479 for eight employees and $8.26 million for other expenses.

The Commonwealth Ports Authority could spend up to $11.77 million in FY2006. This includes $8.17 million for 230 personnel and $3.65 million for non-personnel expenses.

The Senate’s budget proposal approved a $4.29-million budget for the Marianas Public Lands Authority, including $2.9 million for 81 personnel and $1.4 million for other expenses.

The Northern Marianas Housing Corp. got its budget request for $2.62 million, including $1.1 million for 22 staff members and $1.52 million for non-personnel expenses.

The Commonwealth Development Authority has a budget of $1.5 million, with $905,041 available for 16 personnel expenses and $605,000 for other costs.

H.B. 14-371 established a budget authority of $3.07 million for the Office of the Public Auditor, including $2.21 million for personnel and $857,200 for non-personnel expenses. OPA is allowed to employ up to 36 workers.

Except for OPA, all of the public corporations and autonomous agencies operate using self-generated revenues.

Under the Constitution, OPA is guaranteed an annual budget of $500,000.

Further, the Department of Finance is required to withhold 1 percent of all amounts appropriated for all government agencies’ operations and activities, as well as for all capital improvement projects. The withheld OPA funds should not be less than $1 million.

Likewise, public corporations or autonomous agencies are required to pay either 1 percent of the agency’s total operations budget or any amount agreed upon by OPA and the agency, whichever is greater.

Thus, OPA stands to collect about $2.18 million from autonomous agencies alone, suppose each agency remits 1 percent of its budget to OPA.

In addition, OPA could collect up to $2.06 million from departments and agencies, based on their total appropriation of $206.5 million.

The Senate’s budget proposal, however, maintained that the OPA should receive no more than its $3.07-million budget authority from funds appropriated to departments, agencies, and activities of the CNMI government.

To prevent OPA from collecting more than its budget authority, the bill said the Finance Department should monitor monies paid by the public corporations and autonomous agencies, and offset these amounts with appropriated funds that would have otherwise been remitted to OPA.

“Those appropriated funds in excess of OPA’s budget authority shall be re-allocated to the Medical Referral Office in the Department of Public Health for non-personnel expenditures notwithstanding any law to the contrary,” the bill said.