Rep. Blas Jonathan Attao gestures as he speaks during a House session on Thursday.
SENATE President Edith Deleon Guerrero and House Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez on Friday named the conferees that will draft a version of House Bill 23-9 acceptable to both chambers.
Authored by Rep. Denita Yangemai, the measure would allow the Legislature to appropriate non-locally sourced funds with the exception of the federal funds received by the Public School System, the Office of Public Auditor, Northern Marianas College, the Northern Marianas Housing Corp., all CNMI entities and public corporations, and any funds provided directly to specific grantees under the terms and conditions of a federal grant or program except when the governor or the Office of the Governor is the direct expenditure authority.
The House conferees will be chaired by Rep. Ralph N. Yumul and include Reps. Blas Jonathan Attao, Denita Yangetmai and Marissa Flores.
The Senate conferees are headed by Senate Floor Leader Corina L. Magofna and include Sens. Karl King-Nabors, Jude U. Hofschneider and Dennis Mendiola.
Last month, the Senate unanimously adopted the floor amendments offered by Mendiola to make the bill applicable to the reimbursements of non-locally sourced funds, and retroactive to Sept. 1, 2023.
In its session on Thursday, the House rejected the Senate version of the bill.
Yangetmai said the reimbursements are not new funds that need to be appropriated.
Attao, for his part, said a lot of these federal monies are used for disaster recovery, so “it’s kind of eating up the CNMI coffers,” and when the Federal Emergency Management Agency reimburses the CNMI government “it is just putting it back to the general fund.”
So what the Senate’s version does is “double taxing the general fund,” Attao said.
