Torres: OPA is underfunded

All government offices are required by law to chip in a percentage of their annual budget for the Office of the Public Auditor, but it has since been learned that many government agencies are delinquent in their payments to OPA.

This was learned after Gov. Ralph DLG Torres vetoed a section of the newly enacted budget bill, Section 603 of Rep. Ivan A. Blanco’s (R-Saipan) House Bill 21-64 HD2, SD1, that sought to reabsorb unused balances from the OPA to the general fund.

The balances collected from this amount would then be allocated to the Commonwealth Health Care Corp.’s utility arrears and operations and Medical Referral costs. The section further provided exemptions to paying the OPA fee for the Northern Marianas College, the Northern Marianas Trades Institute, and CHCC.

However, in his veto message to the Legislature last Sept. 26, 2019, Torres noted that OPA is already underfunded. He said that unspecified government agencies have not been remitting 1% of their budget as OPA fee.

“The collection of the 1% OPA fee should be equitable across all government agencies, its instrumentalities, and government corporations to enable the [OPA] to perform its mandates. It is unequitable and unfair to consider these exemptions [in Section 603] when it is the responsibility of the government as a whole to [bear] all expenses associated with the mandates of the [OPA],” he noted.

“Instead, an emphasis toward the enforcement of government corporations to pay the 1% should have been stipulated for the government to realize any unencumbered fund balances,” he added.

According to Article III, Section 12 of the CNMI Constitution, the OPA is entitled to a budget of at least $500,000. However, the non-collection of the 1% OPA fee, Torres noted, creates a funding gap for OPA, resulting in it being underfunded.

Torres did not specifically note whether the OPA was receiving at least $500,000 annually for its budget.

In a previous session, the House rejected Senate changes to Rep. Roman Benavente’s (R-Saipan) House Bill 21-40, a legislation that would have exempted NMC and NMTI from paying annual OPA fees.

Conferees, according to House Speaker Blas Jonathan “B.J.” Attao (R-Saipan), were assigned for the House, but he could not confirm whether the Senate assigned conferees to discuss the bill.