THE Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation’s Committee on Judiciary and Governmental Operations on Monday adopted a committee report urging the governor’s authorized representative Patrick Guerrero to make a recommendation to waive overpayment under the Lost Wages Assistance or LWA program to ineligible applicants.
The CNMI was awarded $7.7 million in LWA funds by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The period of assistance began in the week of Aug. 1, 2020 and was initially scheduled to end on Dec. 27, 2020. After the program’s cost-share waiver was approved on March 22, 2021, the period of performance was extended.
In order to qualify for LWA funds, applicants must have been enrolled in the first round of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and received at least $100 from that program so they can avail themselves of the $300 payment from LWA.
A total of $5,128,320 in LWA payments to 6,008 individuals were made as of March 27, 2021, but approximately 150 to 200 individuals are still waiting for payments, the committee report stated.
“There may be a possible $2.1 million de-obligation due to the lack of eligible applicants to be paid out,” the report added.
It stated that it was also brought to the committee’s attention that the CNMI Department of Labor was given a deadline of Aug. 27, 2021 to recover funds that have been paid to ineligible individuals.
Citing Section 262 of the Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers Act of 2020, the committee said the CNMI government has the authority to waive overpayments in LWA when the individual is not at fault for the payment.
Chaired by Democrat Sen. Edith Deleon Guerrero, the committee said it “finds that there is cause for concern regarding the program’s lack of accurate data, transparency and accountability, plan to retrieve funds paid to ineligible individuals, and most especially the potential de obligation of $2.1 million should the program not be able to pay out.”
The committee recommends that the governor’s authorized representative and CNMI Labor work together to address the lack of eligible applicants.
The committee also recommends that the governor’s authorized representative make a recommendation to waive the overpayment of LWA funds to individuals who were deemed ineligible, and that CNMI Labor pay out the remaining $2.1 million in LWA funds to ensure that there will be no de-obligation of the fund.
