HOUSE Ways and Means Committee Chairman Donald Manglona said Community Disaster Loan proceeds have been set aside for the payment of the 25% of the retirees’ pension benefits in fiscal year 2022.
Manglona was reacting to the statement of Finance Secretary David DLG Atalig who said the Legislature has to find an alternative source of FY 2022 funding for the retirees’ 25% pension benefits.
The Rota representative said the House Ways & Means Committee “did its job in ensuring that the 25% is covered.”
He said that attached to Gov. Ralph DLG Torres’ revised budget submission in July was a letter of Finance Administrative Services Director Margaret Bertha Torres to Special Assistant for Management and Budget Vicky Villagomez.
In that letter, Manglona said Bertha Torres, who was the acting Finance secretary at the time informed Villagomez that “funds were set aside from the Federal Emergency Management Agency Community Disaster Loan to pay for the 25% to the retirees for FY 2022.”
The acting Finance secretary said in her letter: “By the end of the current fiscal year 2021, the Department of Finance will have exhausted all CDL funding, other than those reserved for FY 2022 to pay for the 25% of retirees pension.”
Manglona said the governor, in his initial budget submission in April, “did not include any funding source for the 25%.”
Manglona said when his committee received the revised budget submission in July, “we noticed that the Community Disaster Loan would take care of this fiscal year’s 25%.”
In FY 2022, which started on Oct. 1, the CNMI government has to remit to the Settlement Fund $14.4 million for the 25% of the retirees’ pension benefit.
Atalig said the government needs to pay roughly $1.2 million per month. The retirees expect to get their 25% on a biweekly basis, and the first payment in this new fiscal year should be made by Oct. 15.
The previous source of funds to pay the 25% was the business gross revenue tax from Imperial Pacific International whose casino shut down in March 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the NMI Settlement Fund, “The 25% benefit payment and bonus payment are voluntary payments from the [CNMI] Government, and are not required under the Settlement Agreement.”
Donald Manglona
