‘Use fifth of DPL budget for land payments’

Lawmakers want a fifth of the Department of Public Lands’ budget reserved for payment of land compensation claims.

The proposed constitutional amendment comes in a bid to settle approximately 300 payments claims for private land the government has seized for public purposes.

Rep. Joseph Deleon Guerrero penned the proposed constitutional amendment. Twelve other lawmakers signed on as co-sponsors.

“Numerous landowners have been deprived of the use of their land for decades without just compensation,” the legislators state in the initiative. “In fact, many landowners have passed away without the benefit of being compensated for the taking of their land. However, several land claims have been settled pending monetary compensation from the government, which lacks funds for such compensation.”

The lawmakers propose to resolve the claims by mandating DPL to reserve 20 percent of its yearly operational expense to pay land compensation claims.

DPL’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2009 is $3 million.

Under the Constitution, the department is tasked with managing leases of public lands on behalf of the people of Northern Marianas descent. After deducting administrative costs from the collected fees, DPL transfers the balance to the Marianas Public Land Trust. MPLT then invests the money. Income earned from those investments is transferred to the general fund for appropriation by the Legislature.

In 2002, the CNMI government borrowed $40 million to settle land compensation claims. About $28 million of the bond proceeds was allocated to land compensation payments, and the rest went to other projects.

However, an audit showed that the now defunct Marianas Public Lands Authority distributed the funds improperly. Many of the landowners paid with the money got more than the actual value of their property. Some claims were paid out of turn while older claims were ignored.

According to DPL records, approximately 170 landowners are still waiting to be paid for a combined 283 pieces of property used for road projects. There are hundreds of other claims for land used for ponding basin, utility easements, wetlands, and historic preservation.

To become law, the legislative initiative must have the vote of three-fourths of the members of each legislative chamber, and ratified by voters in a general election.