Commonwealth Ports Authority Board Chair Ramon A. Tebuteb listens to board member Thomas Villagomez, back to the camera, during a board meeting in December 2024.
THE Commonwealth Ports Authority, an autonomous government agency, is asking the 24th Legislature for $11 million for personnel and debt service.
In a letter to Senate President Dennis James C. Mendiola and Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez, CPA Board Chair Ramon A. Tebuteb said they are requesting $4.5 million for fiscal year 2025 to pay for “personnel costs and to meet debt service payments; and $6.5 million for FY 2026 for salaries, employee benefits and debt service payments.”
“CPA is the only government agency that is still under austerity measures,” Tebuteb told Villagomez and Mendiola.
He said CPA’s current cash position “is dire, with only three months of personnel and operational funding available.”
He said in October, they adopted rate methodologies “that would enable CPA to be self-supporting.” But once again, Tebuteb said, airline companies complained that the fees based on the methodologies were “too high, and they might be forced to discontinue flights into the CNMI.”
At the time, Tebuteb said, Gov. Arnold I. Palacios also requested the CPA board to continue the temporary landing fee and terminal rental rate reduction program up to September 2025.
In return, Tebuteb said the governor “committed [the] central government to pay the differential between published and temporary fees and rates from October 2023 up to September 2025. CPA appreciates this commitment from the governor.”
Tebuteb said the implementation of the temporary rate reduction program had reduced CPA’s projected income by 47%. It dropped to $6,437,859 from $12,251,000, he added.
Tebuteb said this projected income “falls very short of the $16,570,000 that airports need to cover the personnel costs, operating expenses and debt service payments.”
CPA is one of the government entities hardest hit by the low tourist arrival rates.
