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Tinian municipality still on CARES Act
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Posted on Dec 23 2020
TINIAN—The Municipality of Tinian is set to slowly go back to paying their government employees from government funds, as their Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act comes to an end this month.
According to Allen Perez, Tinian Mayor’s Office chief of staff, the island was allotted $500,000 for only personnel and operations. To date, they have a balance of approximately $150,000 that they will be sure to use up by the end of the month.
In an interview, Tinian and Aguiguan Mayor Edwin P. Aldan said that while the municipality will slowly move back to government funds, there will be some employees who will be furloughed.
“We’re slowly moving back these government employees back to government funding status. There are some employees that unfortunately, will not be coming back, [but] we’re hoping that the economy comes back,” said Aldan, adding that he’s hopeful that the economy will rebound so people will have secure jobs again.
Aldan also stated that while Saipan has hotels, stores, local businesses, restaurants, etc. that are open and providing employment, Tinian is a smaller community where the jobs are sparse and little to no job opportunities at the moment. Additionally, the biggest employer for Tinian’s community is the government.
By next year, Tinian will be seeing more job opportunities as they are looking forward to upcoming projects from the Federal Emergency Management Administration, the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program, other military projects, etc.
Aldan stated that it’s time that they give back to their people with the opportunity to be trained as a skilled worker. “That’s what we’re missing, [what] we’re lacking on our own island, and so we need to start training people in certain particular skills so that they can go out [to find] jobs and find whatever is necessary for them to provide for their family,” said Aldan.
Based on Census 2010, Tinian’s population was 2,800 people, but before that Tinian’s population was approximately 4,000 people.
