“WE are still not at the pre-Covid levels — we are still struggling with tax revenues,” Department of Finance Secretary David DLG Atalig said on Friday.
But the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, has allowed the Commonwealth to be “whole” by supplementing the islands’ lack of tax revenues, he added.
“We are okay now in terms of cash flow because of ARPA,” Atalig said, but added that there is a cap on how much of the federal funds can be used for the CNMI government.
“As long as we’re not exceeding that cap — which I don’t anticipate we will — we’re doing okay. Collections could be better. That is why the local stimulus, getting the tax refunds out, getting monies into our community is a priority for me and the governor, so that we can revive our local economy,” Atalig said.
In addition, the administration is hoping that the travel bubble with South Korea will slowly bring in tourists and help generate more taxes, such as the hotel occupancy tax, the restaurant tax, and the business gross revenue tax.
“We don’t expect a lot of general fund revenue being generated, but we’re getting started and getting back to where we were,” Atalig said.
“We have started implementing some ARPA plans and projects as detailed in our ARPA spend plan. A majority of that obviously is for provisions of government, so we’re able to fund our government to the levels prior to the Covid pandemic,” he added.
Federal funding, he said, has also allowed the CNMI government to be fully staffed again and operating at 80 hours per pay period with the end of the austerity measures.
“That’s exciting. Our government workers are all back to working 80 hours, so [thanks to] the ARPA funds, we’re able to do that,” Atalig said.
Altogether, the CNMI has received $481.87 million in ARPA funding.
Of this amount, $141.3 million will be spent in fiscal year 2021 and $340.5 million in FY 2022.
