MPLT board backs move to audit members

The Marianas Public Lands Trust board is planning to initiate a fiduciary audit of its own members to see if they subscribe to the highest ethical standards.

“I feel that we should also be audited as to whether a trustee is following [his or her] fiduciary [responsibilities] or not,” said MPLT board acting chair Herman R. Guerrero.

He said he made the motion during the board’s special meeting this week.

Guerrero said it was board chair Juan S. Torres who first brought up the issue during an earlier meeting.

No final decision has been made on the matter as only two of five members were present during the board meeting Wednesday, plus Torres who participated via telephone.

This issue came up after the Office of the Public Auditor recently released a report disclosing that for three fiscal years covering 2002 to 2004, the MPLT spent more than half a million dollars in travel expenses and incurred administrative expenses that “are higher than they should be.

The MPLT is the government agency entrusted with the “prudent” management of funds from public land leases collected by the Marianas Public Lands Authority.

The OPA report said that trustees spent $297,920 for compensation during the three-year period. It means that each board member, except for one who was appointed in mid-2004, received over $50,000 in compensation during the period.

The OPA said that the board and executive director/consultant Bruce McMillan spent $500,195 on travel expenses.

OPA also cited that in 2004, the trustees began paying themselves $150 each for meetings lasting four hours or less and $300 for meetings over four hours.

The rate increase was embodied in a resolution adopted by the board in December 2003 but was made retroactive to 2002.

CNMI law sets the compensation of board members of government corporations and councils at $30 for a half-day meeting and $60 for a whole-day meeting.

In the report, OPA said that the board met significantly more often than the 12 set meetings a year. OPA said that MPLT met 50 times in 2002, 115 times in FY 2003, and 90 times in FY 2004.

Guerrero said that MPLT board members are cognizant of their responsibilities. He said the board hopes that, through an independent audit, people’s regard of MPLT would improve.

“To be a member, you have to have that highest standards of ethics and fiduciary responsibility,” he said, citing that members undertook periodic trainings on this matter from the U.S. Center of Fiduciary Studies.

He said that, if no independent or outside firm would audit them, the board may ask the center to conduct it. He said the board has yet to tackle the costs involved in such a project.