THE Commonwealth Casino Commission is asking the administration and the Legislature for $4.2 million for fiscal year 2025.
In their budget request to Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez and Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero, Commission Chairman Edward C. Deleon Guerrero and Executive Director Andrew Yeom are requesting $3.1 million for personnel, operations and other related costs, as required by Public Law 19-24.
The commission is also requesting $1.1 million in local appropriation “since the casino licensee, Imperial Pacific International, has failed to honor its obligations to pay the casino regulatory fees since 2020.”
“Should the regulatory fees get paid, the commission will not need this local appropriation,” the commission officials told the Senate president and the House speaker.
The budget request, they added, will enable the commission to continue the implementation of its statutory and regulatory mandates.
In a separate letter to the governor and Special Assistant of Management and Budget Vicky Villagomez, the commission officials said “if granted, the local appropriations being requested will only be used as a last resort.”
“We are still hopeful that the licensee will pay its overdue fees and penalties and if it does, we will not need to tap into the funding from the local appropriations. If it is completely impossible to be considered under the local appropriations, we plead that we be considered under an alternative source of funding,” the commission officials said.
In January 2023, the administration “advised” the commission to suspend its operations due to lack of funding.
The commission is supposed to be funded by the annual $3.15 million regulatory fee that the lone exclusive casino licensee, Imperial Pacific International, has failed to pay since 2020.
The commission is now considering whether to revoke IPI’s license for not paying the CNMI government over $62 million in annual exclusive casino license fees and over $17.62 million in regulatory fees plus fines and penalties, for a total of $79.63 million.
IPI, for its part, has filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge the constitutionality of the regulatory fee law, saying it did not have to pay the casino license fee beginning April 2021 when its exclusive casino license was suspended.
