Mr. Efrain F. Camacho, the current executive director of CPA, accused me of “micromanaging” CPA’s management. He based this accusation on his misgivings that the agenda for the special board meeting conducted on Wednesday, Sept. 30, was prepared without his knowledge and consent.
Mr. Camacho signed the document that presented the agenda. The notice of the meeting was also signed by Mr. Camacho. This indicated to me that he knew what matters and issues the board wanted to address at the special meeting and when and where the meeting was to take place. (I would hope that Mr. Camacho reviewed all the documents he had been signing since he took the helm as CPA’s executive director. But that is another matter.)
Meetings of the board are matters for the board to decide. Mr. Camacho’s responsibility was to make sure that he and the CPA managers are prepared to discuss in sufficient detail the managerial, operational, financial and legal merits of the matters on the agenda, at the request of the board members during the board meeting. If Mr. Camacho needed more time to educate and prepare himself and the managers on the agenda matters, then he merely had to ask for more time. For this particular meeting, the board did not receive such a request and therefore we proceeded with the meeting.
The CPA enabling law and bylaws place the authority to call a board meeting on the chairman of the board of directors, and on a specified extent, on the other voting members of the board. The executive director does not call board meetings. Only the board can call for any and all board meetings.
Mr. Camacho knew, or should have known, what was on the meeting agenda. He knew, or should have known, assuming that he read and had been complying with CPA’s enabling law, bylaws, and rules and regulations, that only the board of directors can call a board meeting. In this particular meeting the board did that. If there was interference of any kind, it was Mr. Camacho who wanted to interfere on jurisdiction reserved for the board only and not the executive director by his assertion that he should be the one calling the board meetings and placing matters of discussion on the agenda. Why was he so upset about the board agenda and the occurrence of the meeting to the extent that he wanted to resign right there and then is puzzling to me.
I should be the one who should be upset for lack of management analyses of matters placed in front of the board for my decision.
Mr. Camacho accused me of “micromanaging” the Commonwealth Ports Authority. He appeared to base his accusation on my comments regarding two items in the meeting agenda in addition to my comments on the matters discussed above.
There were two items on the meeting agenda that were of critical importance to me — not that the other items were not important. These two were the fiscal year 2010 budget for CPA and the unsolicited proposal submitted by a certain company for a ground lease at a specific area at the Saipan seaport. (Being the chairman for the seaport committee, it became my responsibility to review this matter.)
The budget
So folks, here we were; meeting on the last day of fiscal year 2009, Sept. 30, and CPA’s management had not presented its board of directors with a budget or a financing plan for fiscal year 2010. Please keep in mind that fiscal year 2010 was but a day away. First of all, the “budget package” document for fiscal year 2010 was given to me to review ONLY a few days ago. Then to make matters worse the “budget package” was severely inadequate in details, and was therefore uninformative. I do not understand how any management personnel at any level at CPA expected the board of directors to approve a financing plan for the upcoming fiscal year with essentially only a summary of accounting figures, without justification.
After attempting to review the budget package, I had more pages of written questions than the number of pages of the package itself. Now, please keep in mind that in keeping with my responsibilities as a board member, I swore to exercise due diligence and commit my best effort. So I reviewed the budget as presented by management with my best effort.
I knew that CPA was a creation of law. I was also aware that CPA’s budget process was contained in the CPA enabling law, Public Law 2-48. I was also well aware that the CNMI government budget is guided by the CNMI Planning and Budgeting Act, Public Law 3-68. Furthermore, I was also aware of the CPA bylaws addressing the CPA budget matters.
Gathering all these resources for guidance, I attempted to review the budget package submitted by CPA management for adoption by the board.
To put it in a nutshell, the executive director was mandated by P.L. 2-48 with the responsibility to submit to the board a “detailed budget” for the ensuing fiscal year. The “budget package” submitted by Mr. Camacho was dismal — replete with errors, lacked justification for significant changes in revenue and expenditure items, had no missions to accomplish, no goals to pursue, no plan of actions to finance, etc. It did not comply with the CPA law mandating a detailed budget, i.e. a detail annual financial plan for FY ‘10. I brought these deficiencies to the attention of the board. The board agreed to give the package back to management to prepare an adequate annual financial plan. Furthermore, Mr. Camacho failed to realize that the budget is merely a component part of CPA’s fiscal year 2010 operating plan. CPA management had never submitted an annual plan of operations for the board to adopt, of which the budget is a component of. Where was the capital improvement plan? Where was the staff training plan? Where was the financial recovery plan? Where was the Passenger Facility Charges Plan? Etc, etc.
The “budget package” gave me no indication what CPA’s goals and objectives are for FY ‘10. What are we trying to accomplish? What are our priorities in capital improvements, bond obligations, personnel skills improvements, pension plan, pending litigations, etc, etc.? Even a small department within the CNMI government submits a better budget than what Mr. Camacho had given us to adopt.
I could not in good conscience exercise my duty as a board member and adopt a budget as submitted by Mr. Camacho. If Mr. Camacho thinks I am merely his rubberstamp, he is completely wrong. It he thinks that I am “micromanaging” CPA or him in particular because I wanted, and continue to want, to make informed decisions; if he thinks that I will ignore CPA’s laws so that he can be given a free hand to run CPA at his own volition; if he thinks I will remain silent even though after having been given a whole year he has yet to submit a financial recovery plan; if he thinks I will remain silent even though he has yet to comply with several statutory mandates on his position as executive director; if he thinks I will continue to put up with his constant request for a salary increase, he is wrong.
If he wants me to keep a total “hands-off” practice, I will be glad to do as soon as he accomplishes what conscientious and concerned board members expects him to accomplish, as mandated by CPA law. But as long as he has not done so, I will continue to ask him or any other manager to do the work they are hired to do.
The unsolicited proposal to enter into a ground lease at the Saipan seaport
I attempted to review this package expecting CPA management to have prepared and submitted for board review various analyzes on the financial, operational, managerial, and legal merits of the proposal. Nada. In perpetuating his malpractice of not preparing and submitting to the board for review a MANAGEMENT REPORT on the various proposals or requests given to the board for adoption at the board meetings, Mr. Camacho did not submit any management report at all for this proposal. No one has “done the math,” no one has done the legal analysis and issue a legal memo on the proposal, no one has done rental-rate review, no one has taken the proposal’s requests to determine the level of feasibility, no one has done a “best-use” write-up for the subject land area, no one has done a prospective timeline on CPA side, etc., etc., etc. These are typical management reviews, analyses, and studies that must be submitted to the board so the board can make informed decisions based on management study and recommendations. What are the alternatives? What do we have as counter-proposals? Etc, etc.
I do not think that it is unreasonable and over-reaching to expect any of the above work from Mr. Camacho and his staff. I do not think it is “micromanaging” management if I ask them to prepare management studies on matters for the board to decide. It is an integral part of management’s job. And I expect management to do its job.
So far, under Mr. Camacho, management has fallen very short in doing his job.
Just because some people say to him, “Good job, pare” that does not mean that he really is doing a good job. At least not according to good management practice and CPA’s legal mandate.
BENIGNO M. SABLAN
CPA board member
