THE Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is asking the Legislature to amend House Bill 23-59, which would “transition governmental electric rates to commercial rates.”
CHCC wants the bill to apply retroactively to the healthcare corporation as far back as October 2011.
CHCC Chief Executive Officer Esther L. Muna, PhD, MHA, FACHE, submitted her written comment on H.B. 23-59 on Thursday to Sen. Paul A. Manglona, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation and Communications, which is reviewing the bill.
Authored by Rep. Vincent “Kobre” S. Aldan, H.B. 23-59 was passed by the House earlier this month.
The bill states, “The existing governmental utility rate provided by CUC shall be discontinued and deleted from the tariff structure.”
The bill would also “establish a reasonable transition period to eliminate all government utility rates and to implement commercial rates.”
CUC currently bills the government $0.124 per kilowatt hour plus a customer charge of $10 per month. The commercial rate is $0.113 per kilowatt hour plus a $10 customer charge.
In her letter to the Senate committee, Muna said H.B. 23-59 is “an important piece of legislation aimed at addressing imbalanced utility rates impacting government budgets and that of the largest healthcare provider in the CNMI.”
She said it would allow autonomous agencies like CHCC to deliver crucial healthcare services “without hindrance of unsustainable utility costs.”
Saying that the bill “presents a pivotal opportunity to correct the rate system and its application to CHCC,” Muna is also requesting the Legislature to include “a provisionary language to enable retroactive assessment of commercial rates for CHCC.”
She said when the health center, which used to be part of the then-Department of Public Health, became an autonomous government corporation, public health and medical services experienced “an unexpected and unprecedented reduction of appropriations of over $30 million.”
This significant budget shortfall, she added, impaired CHCC’s ability to pay its utility bills right from the start.
She said CHCC is mandated to operate as an independent provider and is continuously urged to efficiently manage itself in business-like fashion, yet its classification as a government account for power and water services has persisted for over a decade. “This has placed an undue financial burden on CHCC that to this day, operates on a significantly lean budget,” she added.
For this reason, Muna said, “I imperatively ask of this Legislature for the inclusion of a provision to this bill, to ensure that utility rates for CHCC are retroactively assessed as commercial rates from October 2011 thereby eliminating a longstanding threat to the operations and overall stability of CHCC.”
In May 2023, CUC said the CNMI government owed the utilities corporation over $59 million with CHCC as the largest delinquent customer at $53.68 million.
