‘Federally funded employees to be exempt from austerity’

Pending a final decision from the Torres administration within the week, federally funded employees would be exempted from austerity cuts that is bound to begin on March 15, made necessary by the drastic downturn in the CNMI economy.

In an early morning interview at KKMP radio yesterday, Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said that employees who get paid through federal grants will be exempted from austerity, which includes no government offices on Fridays, i.e., Austerity Fridays.

“On all the federal programs, if you are federally funded and/or your department or division is not hampered by local revenue or the general revenue, then you will be exempted on the austerity, simply because we need those federal programs to continue to move forward,” he said.

The governor’s statement comes as positive news following last week’s appeal by the House Committee on Federal and Foreign Affairs, chaired by Rep. Luis John DLG Castro (R-Saipan) for the administration to take all the necessary steps to retain and maximize every federal dollar the CNMI gets.

The committee has opposed any austerity measure that would involve cutting federally funded positions and programs, adding that “in these fiscally challenging times, we need these federal funds to continue flowing into our economy, generating revenue for our government and supporting critical jobs and public service.”

In line with this, Torres said that his administration has been assessing measures that were done in the past during times of crisis, and seeing what can be altered, in the current austerity.

“In the past, for austerity measures, we actually just cut everybody across the board. Unless you’re an essential, you’re a sworn officer, other than that, even federal programs were cut across,” he said. “Today, we looked at…what can we do to make sure that our federal programs continue to move forward?”

The administration is also looking into the possibility of having a 100% federally funded department or division as an avenue where all other federally-funded employees from non-fully federally funded offices could clock in on an Austerity Friday.

“We’re looking at a department or division that is 100% federally funded, both with renting or utility and staff. …These are the avenue where other federal employees can come and register, or check in or clock in on that Friday, on austerity for example, so that they can maintain the program that they have [been] funded for,” Torres said.

The governor also stated that there are federal programs offering to advance payments of salaries and expenditures, in an effort to help alleviate the effects of the crisis in the CNMI.

“With government employees, if you work on 5% of your time on certain federal programs, we’re going to write that letter to your grantor asking to pay for that 5%. …If we can transfer as many as we can, from our government local account to federal accounts, then it helps alleviate our government costs,” he said.

Aside from leveraging federally funded programs, the administration has also met with all departments to discuss possibilities of collaborating offices to close some of the offices, and do work in the community, as an austerity measure.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global outbreak has resulted in a drastic drop in the number of tourists coming to the CNMI.