LIEUTENANT Gov. David M. Apatang said he had nothing to do with the Saipan office of the mayor’s former employees receiving their lump sum leave.
“I have nothing to do with whatever happened,” he told reporters on Friday. But “these guys have every right to get lump sum payment for their annual leave…. How they got it, I have no idea…. I left the Saipan Mayor’s Office on Jan. 8…before the inauguration. I have nothing to do with the Saipan Mayor’s Office [now] so…there is no plot here.”
Apatang, who was mayor from January 2015 to January 2023, said he did not provide assistance to the employees.
As lt. governor, he added, “I hired them…because they are good employees — they have spent eight years with me at the mayor’s office…. They [wanted] to continue working for me. I am also happy that they [wanted to] continue working for me, and I hired them. As far as the story goes, I am not involved with their lump sum payment. Check the Finance Department, get the story.”
He said the Office of the Public Auditor is looking into the lump sum annual leave payments.
“We’ll wait for the report and see,” he added.
Asked whether he had any communication with the incumbent Saipan mayor, Ramon B. Camacho, regarding the lump sum payments, Apatang said, “No, because I was not aware of it, until they [the employees] told me that they got paid for their annual leave.”
“As long as the department has money for it, there is no problem,” Apatang added.
Variety was unable to get a comment from the Department of Finance.
Letter from the deputy AG
Variety obtained a letter dated May 5, 2023 from Deputy Attorney General Lilian Ada to Apatang, who was then the acting governor, regarding lump sum annual leave payments.
In her letter, Ada said: “I have been asked by your office to review § CMC 82604 and whether it applies to municipal employees who have received a lump sum payment after leaving the employ of the mayor’s office.”
She said the short answer is “No.”
According to § CMC 82604, “No person shall be re-employed with the Commonwealth government until a period equal to the period of annual leave paid in lump sum has elapsed, except that a person re-employed may, consistent with CNMI regulations, elect to repay an amount equivalent to the non-elapsed annual leave period paid in lump sum upon re-employment with the Commonwealth.”
Ada said municipal entities are separate and distinct creatures from the central government.
“Without any such express references in sections 82601 or 82604, the annual leave restrictions in section 82604 and its related sections do not apply to municipal entities. As such, municipal employees are excluded from reemployment embargo even though they had received a lump sum annual leave payment from the municipal government upon their separation from employment. They are permitted to be employed by the Commonwealth government without having to wait out a period of time equal to the annual leave payout from the municipal government,” Ada added.
Authorization
But according to Mayor Camacho’s chief of staff, Priscilla Iakopo, the deputy AG failed to mention that the current Saipan mayor must authorize lump sum payments from the Saipan mayor’s account.
In a letter dated July 6, 2023 to Secretary of Finance Tracy Norita, Mayor Camacho said he was “shocked” to discover that there was less money in the Office of the Saipan Mayor’s account than what was supposed to be there in the beginning of the third quarter of the current fiscal year.
Mayor Camacho said 10 former employees of his predecessor and four current employees of his office received lump sum payments of accrued annual leave without his authorization.
He said the payments “were all processed, routed…from the MOS’ account…for all these payouts without my knowledge.”
He said the payouts were disbursed on May 19, 2023, May 27, 2023, June 2, 2023, June 14, 2023, and June 28, 2023, totaling $98,137.34, which was taken out of the mayor of Saipan’s account without his authorization and knowledge.
Camacho said his human resource office did not receive a single request for payments from any of the 14 lump sum payment recipients.
“If none of these 14 lump sum payment recipients submitted a request to the MOS HR office, which is the first step in the process, then how did any of their documents get processed and routed to the point of each of them getting fully paid?” he asked.
As if this is not bad enough, Camacho said, “we have financial documents that show that even non-mayor of Saipan employees were paid lump sum [payments] for accrued annual leave using the MOS budget.”
“In fact, these non-MOS employees were not even employed in the municipality of Saipan — they are government employees of Rota. My staff are working and still trying to determine how much of my office’s account was raided and by whom to make these payments to these Rota employees. This in itself deserves its own separate investigation,” Mayor Camacho added.
“In the interest of transparency and accountability,” Camacho requested the Finance secretary to look into the lump sum payments and restore to the Saipan mayor’s account the funds “improperly charged against it.”
Camacho said he has reported the missing funds to the AG’s office, the Office of the Public Auditor, the governor, and the Finance secretary.
Unfortunate
In a separate interview on Thursday, Gov. Arnold I. Palacios said, “Mayor Camacho… alerted me that it was expedited when I was off-island,” referring to the lump sum payments.
“Saipan Mayor Camacho is the fiscal expenditure authority for his office — if there was any authorization for any lump sum payments, it should have [come from] him; that’s my position,” Palacios said.
“It’s unfortunate. I’ve asked Finance and Lt. Governor Apatang about it,” he added, referring to the controversy.
David M. Apatang
