THE governor’s authorized representative for the Covid-19 disaster, Patrick Guerrero, said on Wednesday that the CNMI is seeking at least $30 million in reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for local costs incurred during the pandemic.
The CNMI expects to receive $16 million in reimbursements which leaves $14 million in pending reimbursements.
“We’re not spending millions of dollars these days like we used to, obviously, but there are still processes through the Public Assistance Program [in which] we have to submit certain documents for certain reimbursements,” Guerrero said, adding that $16 million “is just a portion of what we plan to submit.”
“We’re working hard every day to get those documents in and answer any questions [FEMA] might have.”
But he said there are certain expenses that are not reimbursable.
For the Covid-19 pandemic in the CNMI, he said these non-reimbursable expenses include certain vehicle purchases and quarantining of tourists.
“We may have had to purchase a car at one point because we couldn’t lease any more — there were no more cars to lease. FEMA doesn’t consider that a reimbursable expense, but we hope that for the government now, [the cars will still] be of use even after the disaster,” Guerrero said.
“There are also some expenses when we had to have tourists quarantined. FEMA doesn’t pay for the quarantining of tourists.”
But Guerrero said these were not tourists from South Korea who arrived through the Marianas Visitors Authority program aimed at boosting the local tourism industry.
“I’m not talking about those tourists in particular. There are certain individuals that don’t qualify for quarantine, but we had to just quarantine them to keep the community safe. But they’re very minimal,” he added.
He noted that in the beginning of the pandemic, the CNMI had Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act funds to utilize for non-reimbursable expenditures or “shortfalls in the FEMA program.”
He said expenditures up until July 1 are 100% covered by FEMA, while everything past that date requires a 10% cost-share from the jurisdiction.
“There are going to be costs moving forward that are non-reimbursable, which will be our share to bear with the 10% cost-share,” he added. “But since we’ve [seen a decline] in a lot of [Covid-19] activities, I don’t expect that number to be high.”
