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OPA: No to exempting NMC from 1 percent contribution
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Posted on Mar 27 2008
The Office of the Public Auditor is against exempting Northern Marianas College from the requirement to contribute 1 percent of its budget to OPA.
“OPA has always been supportive of the need to provide resources to education in the Commonwealth. However, we are opposed to the waiver of NMC from the requirement to contribute 1 percent of its annual budget to OPA,” said Dawn Chrystal K. Revilla, an analyst at OPA.
She said the agency is concerned the waiver “will set an undesirable precedence given the responsibilities placed on OPA by the CNMI constitution and auditing act.”
NMC’s 1 percent represents approximately $50,000. The proposal to relieve the college from paying this amount to OPA is pending before the House of Representatives.
In a letter to House Ways and Means Committee chairman Ray N. Yumul, Revilla offered a compromise: OPA will take on the cost of NMC’s single audit if the college continues to pay the 1 percent.
She said OPA agrees to take on the additional expense—about $32,000—because NMC is funded by the central government, which has remained current in remitting its one percent to OPA.
She added that the difference of $18,000 will be used toward other services that OPA provides for NMC and all other government agencies.
These services include adjudicating procurement appeals, conducting performance and compliance audits, performing investigative work, monitoring financial disclosures of government officials, providing ethics education and enforcement, monitoring and regulating campaign finance activities in the commonwealth, and providing general advisory services.
