Cohen: DOI still reviewing NMI’s Compact fund’s use

The length of time that the federal government is taking to review Gov. Juan N. Babauta’s proposal for the CNMI’s Compact Impact funds should not be misinterpreted as an indication of any problem or possible disapproval, a visiting federal official said.

David B. Cohen, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s deputy assistant secretary for insular affairs, said his office is still reviewing the governor’s plan to commit over $20 million in Compact Impact funds entirely to the Public School System. The CNMI stands to receive the funds in four annual installments of about $5 million, beginning fiscal year 2005.

“The proposal is with my staff, who are reviewing it thoroughly. We have requirements; once we have satisfied ourselves in that, we will allow the release of the money. It shouldn’t take too long to happen,” he said.

Cohen denied an earlier report that recipients of Compact Impact money may not be allowed to allocate all of the funds to one single government agency, as the governor had proposed to do.

“We defer to the wishes of the government receiving the money. We believe that the local government understands the islands’ priorities more than we do,” he said.

The Babauta administration has expressed plans to use the CNMI’s Compact Impact funds from 2005 to 2008 mainly for PSS’ infrastructure needs and other education-related projects.

The Senate recently passed a resolution asking the governor to allocate all Compact Impact funds for fiscal year 2006 to the departments of Public Health and Public Safety.

The annual Compact funding of $5.1 million is the CNMI’s share in the $30 million federal appropriation to compensate territories on FAS migration-related costs.

The Compact legislation provides that $30 million be divided each year for the next 20 years among the CNMI, Guam, Hawaii, and American Samoa to help these jurisdictions deal with the effects of migration from the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands, which are commonly known as the freely associated states.

The funds are to be divided proportionally among the jurisdictions on the basis of the number of people in each jurisdiction who migrated from FAS after 1986, when the original Compacts of Free Association between the United States and the island governments went into effect.