Public Auditor Michael Pai told Yumul, R-Saipan, that although OPA is tasked to audit government offices, the lawmaker’s audit request actually covers two things.
“Upon further review, the request appears to not only seek an audit but also a legal opinion on whether pay-outs of housing benefits to off-island hire excepted service employees is allowable under the current commonwealth statutory and regulatory landscape,” Pai told Yumul in a letter dated yesterday or about four months after the lawmaker made the request.
In March, Yumul asked OPA to audit the government housing allowance of excepted employees after reports reached his office that the sunset provision for such privilege already ended.
These excepted service employees receive $600 to $800 monthly housing allowance, which, the Retirement Fund said could be used to pay off the cash-strapped government’s mounting debts to the pension agency.
Yumul said a law was passed in 2005 establishing a sunset provision for housing benefits for excepted service employees to be automatically repealed by 2007.
“Therefore, all new government employment contracts after Oct. 1, 2007 should not have included housing benefits. However, it has come to my attention that many contracts executed after Oct. 1, 2007 included housing benefits. Second, there are several reports that some government employees are receiving housing benefits notwithstanding the five-year restriction set forth in NMIAD § 1120-10-205(g),” part of Yumul’s March letter to Pai reads.
But Pai said: “While OPA is charged with authority to conduct audits and investigations that fall within our constitutional and statutory mandates, we will defer the advisory legal opinions with the Office of the Attorney General with respect to the legality of such continuing housing benefit payouts.”
He added: “OPA is willing to entertain a request for audit after receiving guidance on the legal effects of Public Law 14-91 on excepted service employees and housing benefits.”
