THE Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors is reviewing the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.’s six-month extension request.
“What they requested was an extension of six months under the current payment plan,” CUC Executive Director Gary Camacho told the CUC board on Friday.
“They don’t have time to come up with a new plan, but they need six months. Basically, [they’re] requesting to extend the [previous] agreement,” he added.
CUC and CHCC signed a payment agreement regarding CHCC’s utility bill in Sept. 2020.
According to the agreement, CHCC owed CUC a total of $34.087 million as of Aug. 25, 2020, including a penalty of $10.23 million that had accrued over the course of almost a decade since 2011.
Under the agreement, CHCC’s payment will remain at a minimum of $219,000 per month unless there is an increase in CHCC’s consumption or a rate increase in the Fuel Adjustment Charge or FAC.
If CHCC misses its payment after 30 calendar days, CHC will disconnect CHCC’s utility services pursuant to Title 50 of the Northern Mariana Islands Administrative Code.
Present at the CUC board meeting on Friday were board chair Miranda Manglona and members Weston Thomas Deleon Guerrero, Jovita Paulino, Janice Tenorio, and Matthew Holley.
Except for Holley, all board members initially objected to a six-month extension.
“We don’t have to make a decision today,” Holley told them. “Let’s give it a month, see what the central government has to say about the request of CHCC. I think we will have an answer sooner than that. And we don’t want to wait for a board meeting six months from now to take action.”
Deleon Guerrero said, “CUC is still trying to recover the account — the economy is still trying to recover. We have commercial businesses that make payments every month, and keep up with the payments of their utility bills, yet we don’t give them extensions for two weeks nor make them sign a promissory note.”
Deleon Guerrero said CHCC had been “in default” in the past and is now asking for a six-month extension.
“I would go against that,” Deleon Guerrero added. “If we want to give them [an extension], probably two weeks or a month only, and every month they have to request another extension. I don’t think we should give them six months. I feel for the business community — they don’t have a recourse.”
Tenorio agreed. “They [CHCC] are currently receiving federal and local funding for the Covid-19 response. I am sure power is also subsidized at the designated alternate care sites.”
She said, “It’s not fair for the other members of the community who pay on time and when they don’t, we give them a delinquency notice. We should be adamant for CHCC to pay their bill.”
As for Paulino, her concern is that the CUC board has already gone through the process of signing a payment agreement with CHCC. “What is happening here is we have to go back and reconsider again that agreement,” she added.
But Paulino is in favor of giving CHCC three months to discuss a payment plan with the central government.
“We are talking about our only hospital. There are some critical care services they are providing to our people. Maybe we can deal with the non-essential areas, but not the critical ones — we have to take into consideration those things, but a month is not enough,” Paulino said.
Citing the federal funds CHCC received for the Covid-19 pandemic response, Manglona said “we assumed that when the money started coming in, they would pay more than what was in the agreement. They have not shown any…sign [that they are keeping] their promises.”
CUC legal counsel Jose Mafnas Jr. told the board that CHCC is asking for a six-month extension, “and during those six months they are going to work with the central government, the Department of Finance, to receive payment for what they [CHCC] are owed under certain accounts and to use that as payments to CUC.”
Mafnas said there is enough time for the CUC board to make a decision, as the next payment due under the agreement with CHCC is in October.
CUC Executive Director Gary Camacho also noted that to date, CHCC and the central government are current with their utility payments.
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board members discuss the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.’s payment extension request on Friday in CUC’s conference room.
Outgoing Commonwealth Utilities Corp. Deputy Executive Director William Gilmore, center, receives a framed certificate of appreciation from the CUC board and management team on Friday. Gilmore was hired by CUC in Nov. 2016.
