ACTING Office of Management and Budget Special Assistant Virginia “Vicky” Villagomez, who was the OMB special assistant and the governor’s authorized representative for the Super Typhoon Yutu disaster during the Torres-Palacios administration, said she had sounded the alarm regarding the expenditure of American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA funds.
“When I was around, which was at the beginning of [ARPA], there were times where our office would be informed of allotments…pursuant to [the administration] plan, and whenever there were any deviations, I would immediately call the Department of Finance, the office of the secretary, to remind them that there were terms and conditions of ARPA that we must follow,” Villagomez said.
Asked what the finance department’s response was to these calls, Villagomez said, “There was no response at all.”
Acting Secretary of Finance Tracy B. Norita, who was the director of the Division of Revenue and Taxation in the previous administration, said certain information pertaining to the CNMI’s finances were not made available to her.
“Only certain people, I would say, were aware of the true nature of our fiscal condition…. I was a civil service employee, just like all the other employees of the Department of Finance, and so we serve the entire public,” she added.
Norita said a fiscal response team is analyzing the transition report pertaining to the Department of Finance.
“Each director has their own divisions and their own operations as their sole responsibility,” she said. “This transition report and the findings are really coming out of the [office of the secretary of Finance], so that is where we are starting and that’s how we’re going to move forward, to really start with the secretary’s office and all the decisions and authorizations that were made at that level,” she said.
Norita said it was a host of things that created “the environment for these kinds of overspending to happen,” including the Munis budgetary controls.
“So, again, that’s why our fiscal response team is really taking a look at the findings of the transition report, and already taking some immediate actions to remedy the problem,” she added.
Villagomez and Norita are part of the fiscal response team created by the Palacios-Apatang administration and comprised of the Department of Finance, the Office of Management and Budget, the Public Assistance Office, and the Office of Homeland Security and Management.
Gov. Arnold I. Palacios said it will take weeks to assess the government’s financial condition. He hopes to have the fiscal year 2023 budget revised before he submits his fiscal year 2024 budget proposal to the Legislature.
Under the law, the new governor “shall make his…first submission no later than five months before the beginning of the fiscal year.” FY 2024 begins on Oct. 1, 2023, which means that Gov. Palacios has until May 1, 2023, to submit his proposed FY 2024 budget.
Acting Office of Management and Budget Special Assistant Virginia “Vicky” Villagomez listens during a press conference at the governor’s office on Wednesday.
