Inos prepares $12M supplemental budget

Gov. Eloy S. Inos is proposing a fiscal year 2014 supplemental budget of $12 million, much more than the initial projection of “$8 million to $9 million.” While the supplemental budget has yet to reach the Legislature, he has already told lawmakers that additional projected revenue, on top of the fiscal year 2014 budget of $123.4 million, will fund only two items.

On Saturday, the governor said the supplemental budget could be transmitted to the Legislature this week. The submission has been delayed several times as the numbers and circumstances have been changing.

With the additional $12 million, the total projected resources available for appropriation in 2014 would be $135.4 million, more than the governor’s proposed $134-million budget for 2015.

Of the total supplemental budget, $7 million will go toward the government health and life insurance premium.

The remaining $5 million will be added to the $20 million earlier set aside for the government’s payment into the retirement settlement trust fund, to meet the $25 million minimum required payment for 2014.

“No room [for other things]. That’s pushing the envelope, really,” Inos said in an interview at a Department of Public Safety event on Thursday. On Saturday, he said the figure remains the same.

Some lawmakers and departments or agencies have been looking at other items that they want to be funded by the supplemental budget, including outstanding utility service payments to the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.

The governor met with House Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) and Ways and Means Committee chair Tony Sablan (Ind-Saipan) on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the supplemental budget and other pressing matters.

“He wants to keep us abreast on the status of the supplemental budget,” Deleon Guerrero said of that meeting. He said the additional projected revenues come from tax settlements that the government has entered into, including with Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino and business tycoon William H. Millard, who owes the CNMI some $118 million in unpaid taxes.

The speaker said there is “some understanding” of a settlement in the Millard case. The CNMI government hired the New York-based law firm Kobre & Kim to go after Millard, once listed as among the richest people in America. He sold his interests in ComputerLand Corp. retail chain for over $200 million while he and his family were living on Saipan decades ago.

He said additional revenues related to the authorization of casino gaming on Saipan are also to be expected if and when the Lottery Commission grants a license to exclusively develop a minimum $2 billion casino resort on the island.

Sablan said they’re awaiting the governor’s actual submission of the $12 million supplemental budget, even as the House Ways and Means Committee continues its 2015 budget hearings.