The administration says that this amount is for the hospital’s utility payments. It then claims that CUC will no longer be owed $5 million because the Department of Public Health will be replaced by a healthcare corporation — another regulatory body with no members. Then the administration declares that the hospital will generate $18 million in revenue, which supposes that CHC will actually collect all its accounts receivables even though its five-month collection amount stands at $4 million. All this isn’t spelled out in the governor’s shell game of a budget.
His submission, moreover, is based on $120 million of estimated local revenue collections and doesn’t appear to include federal funds. How much will the CNMI government get from the feds in FY 2012? Surely most of these amounts have already been quantified.
The governor, in addition, reports that there will be a decrease of FTE’s in FY 2012, some 332 positions. Most are apparently vacant and unfilled. But the 2,111 FTE’s reported for FY 2011 don’t appear to include FTE’s from the independent agencies and so, once again, the governor’s budget message makes no mention of the total number of employees on government payroll.
According to the governor, his budget submission “has received the input and comments of the mayors of Rota, Tinian and Aguigan, Saipan, and the Northern Islands, as well as that of the executive assistant for Carolinian Affairs.” The mayors should be grateful as their budgets have been cut by an estimated 20 percent only while the central government budget has been halved. The Saipan and Northern Islands mayors will share $1.219 million.
The governor’s “2012 Distribution Summary,” for its part, indicates that the judicial branch is budgeted at $4 million and the Legislature at $4.224 million. But the attached chart titled “Government Activities by Function” states that the judiciary will get $2.72 million while the Legislature will get $2.789 million.
But wait. There’s more.
An estimated $1.69 million is budgeted for payment to the Retirement Fund’s Defined Benefit Plan, “calculated based on a rate approved by the board of trustees (i.e., 30 percent).” The trustees are the governor’s appointees. The actuarially determined rate is 37.39 percent. This is the figure determined by law which the central government has ignored and now wants to amend. The governor is urging lawmakers to pass H.B. 17-99 so that the government can “move away from the actuarially determined rate…and appropriate a specific line-item amount.” Translation: Reduce the government’s employer contributions, please. It is certain the Legislature will oblige.
The governor in any case gets credit for getting “a budget” to the Legislature on a timely basis, just as he deserves credit for virtually merging his Covenant Party with the supposedly opposition Republican Party without so much as a hiccup from any quarter. The Legislature, which continues to maintain the fiction of a two-party arrangement, is now about to deliberate on the fictions offered by the governor’s budget.
The governor also deserves credit for deftly delivering the hospital to some unknown party, without an RFP, through the creation of a healthcare corporation. The transfer, the administration said, will be concluded within three months. The governor is fortunate indeed that he can seek medical treatment for his back ailment in the U.S. or Japan. What quality of service does the Legislature think the people of the commonwealth deserve? Unfortunately, we will soon find out.
