He noted that the Saipan and Northern Island Legislative Delegation usually appropriates the island’s poker revenue only for local scholarship program and other Saipan projects.
Last fiscal year, the Saipan delegation appropriated $3.4 million in poker revenues for the Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance program and several community projects.
In the next fiscal year, House Local Bill 17-57 will allot for Saipan alone all the revenues generated here — which is almost the exact amount to be appropriated by the budget bill, or H.B. 17-215. Torres, Ind.-Saipan, said his local bill shows how much exactly of the entire commonwealth’s financial resources are generated on Saipan.
H.LB. 17-57 does not take into account the total $8 million which Rota and Tinian “presumably” contribute to the commonwealth, Torres said.
Torres said he just want to let everybody realize that most if not all the $120 million projected revenues are actually Saipan’s revenues.
Instead of using only the Saipan poker revenues for the SHEFA program and other local projects, Torres’ local appropriation bill identifies all the other revenues listed in H.B. 17-215 and earmark them for the same purposes stated in the commonwealth budget bill.
Torres is the author of the Saipan casino bill, which Rota and Tinian lawmakers are hesitant to support.
