Transition report: CPA is in crisis

The transition report on the Commonwealth Ports Authority claims that the agency is “crisis” due to multiple factors, including its alleged lack of prospects in averting a fiscal downturn by the end of this fiscal year.

According to Bruce Jorgensen, the CPA transition team member who was tasked with looking into CPA’s federal and regulatory compliance, the CPA is in a “crisis” for multiple reasons, the most worrisome of which is CPA’s alleged lack of funding prospects to avert a fiscal downturn. In addition, Jorgensen claims that CPA also faces a crisis due to management issues and alleged prospective sanctions by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“CPA is an entity in crisis and seemingly on the threshold of a catastrophe due to: (1) longstanding and recurring management issues; (2) resulting criticism, warnings, intervention, and prospective sanctions—explicitly raised, documented, and detailed over the past four-plus years—by FAA and related federal regulatory/grant officials; and (3) seemingly few, if any, known prospects of averting a massive fiscal downturn by the end of the 2023 fiscal year, which CPA’s current board should long ago have made transparent to all, but instead appears to have neither conceived, nor implemented, any contingency/remedial options or plans beyond hopes of tourism increases, and/or instituting CPA personnel reductions at the eleventh hour,” said Jorgensen.

CPA chair Kimberlyn King-Hinds said in a statement that CPA cannot comment on the findings of the transition report at this time as the board is still reviewing it and will be issuing a statement “once that review is completed.”

Jorgensen stated in his report that because CPA has delayed, neglected, or failed to avail of federal grants and related supplemental funding avenues, it now faces a crisis.

The transition team member also reported that CPA has violated federal requisites for its “repetitive, perpetual” lapses in airport security.

In addition to this, Jorgensen claims that Saipan’s airport tower has been inoperable for over four years now, adding that CPA never disclosed this to the public.

Also, Jorgensen stated that CPA has diverted seaport revenues to fund airport salaries and lacks transparency by allegedly not disclosing some of these findings to the public.