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Governor corrects proposed NMC budget to meet MOE
»Ways and Means prepares 2015 budget bill
Gov. Eloy S. Inos submitted errata sheets to the Legislature to ensure that $315,192 in his proposed $3.930-million fiscal year 2015 budget for Northern Marianas College is “funded by general fund appropriations” to meet maintenance-of-effort requirements. Meanwhile, House Ways and Means Committee chair Rep. Tony Sablan (Ind-Saipan) said the panel is now deliberating on a fiscal year 2015 budget bill for presentation to the full House.
The governor said that of the $315,192 moved to NMC, $165,192 was “adjusted” from Finance’s Electronic Data Processing Division, and $150,000 from the Commonwealth Scholarship Office.
Inos clarified that the errata sheets he sent on Friday do not change the total revenues available for appropriation for fiscal year 2015.
“The adjustments made are to accommodate the maintenance-of-effort allocation to the Northern Marianas College amounting to $315,192, as this should be funded by general fund appropriations,” Inos told House Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) and Senate President Ralph Torres (R-Saipan).
The U.S. Department of Education required MOE funding when it gave the CNMI $44 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds in 2009. This mandates the local government to allocate a certain percentage of its annual budget on public education. That percentage is equivalent to 40 cents to a dollar or 25 percent of the overall CNMI government budget. The MOE must come from local funds.
Sablan said yesterday the House Ways and Means Committee is taking into consideration the errata sheets from the governor.
Besides the $3,930,008 to NMC from general fund appropriations, the college also gets $700,000 from the Commonwealth Worker Fee Fund and $86,762 from Compact Impact. The total allocation to the NMC with the combined sources will amount to $5,031,962 under the governor’s proposal but the figures could still change at the Legislature.
