Flashback — Feb. 1999-Feb. 2001

CNMI aims for more matching funds[/B]

Apparently undaunted by proposed cut in federal funding, the CNMI government is looking at releasing within the next few weeks another batch of Capital Improvement Projects aimed to rev up the economy amid deepening recession on the island. The next set to get funding boost will likely involve school building plans and other improvement projects of the Public School System which is soon to receive $15.6 million loan from a California-based financing firm, Rep. Karl T. Reyes said. These projects will amount close to $32 million with an equivalent funds from the federal government made available under the CIP program, according to the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee in an interview Friday.

Its serious move to bring down its deficit since early last year and aggressively pushing for austerity measures no matter how unpopular they are will save the Public School System from payless payday. In his presentation to the Board of Education, acting Fiscal and Budget Officer William Matson told members that PSS will elude the payless payday which was earlier anticipated to occur in March. “We will have enough cash to make sure that we do not have payless payday in March,” he said in interview. “The other factor that we cannot control is obviously the allotment. If the government for whatever reason is not able to transfer cash then we have a problem.”

3 House committee grill Babauta[/B]

Washington Rep. Juan Babauta faced three House committees yesterday in the first ever oversight hearing conducted by the Legislature into the Office of the CNMI Resident Representative to the United States. The oversight hearing stemmed from a financial report prepared by the House Ways and Means Committee which claimed that Mr. Babauta overspent more than $250,000 from his Fiscal 1999 allotment. The hearing focused on the office’s fund use as well as assessment on federal takeover and annual appropriations legislation pending before the U.S. Congress. Legislators also took turns in grilling Mr. Babauta due to his office’s apparent failure to stop the approval of a legislation in the U.S. Senate which was aimed at extending federal immigration and minimum wage control into the CNMI.

He was with a group of men involved in a carjacking incident on July 11, 1999 and did not make any effort to report that a crime was being committed at that time. And for this, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has filed a case against Francisco N. Basa for a federal crime that has a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment. However, Mr. Basa may face a lighter sentence after he entered into a plea agreement yesterday with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He was later on released on a $25,000 unsecured bond.

House eyes additional funding for GHLIP[/B]

The Legislature is looking into a possible appropriation of supplemental budget to help the Group Health Life Insurance Program settle its more than $4 million outstanding debts to hundreds of on- and off-island health providers. According to Committee on Health and Welfare chair Maria Peter, the Legislature is bent at exerting all efforts to provide GHLIP with financial support to end its funding woes with over 295 health providers. Ms. Peter disclosed that plans are now being laid out to assist GHLI rise from its financial setbacks; the same reason why the health and welfare committee recently asked Program Manager Dolores Moore to provide the Legislature a complete financial report since 1996.

House leaders are mulling over the creation of an organized mechanism that would financially prepare local students to pursue their postsecondary education careers within the Northern Marianas. Dubbed as the Commonwealth College Savings Program of 2001, the legislation’s intent is to establish a qualified higher education tuition program to enable families save for college and other expenses through college accounts. Rep. William S. Torres, author of college savings bill, has proposed for the implementation of college accounts that would enable residents of the CNMI and other states to benefit from the tax incentive provided for qualified state tuition programs under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.