GOVERNOR Arnold I. Palacios and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang on Tuesday afternoon met with the members of the House leadership to discuss the revision of the Appropriations and Budget Authority Act of Fiscal Year 2025 or Public Law 23-26.
Although the governor already lifted an austerity measure late in October to restore the executive branch employees’ work hours to 80 per pay period, he did this only through Executive Directive 2025-002.
In their meeting on Tuesday, the governor told the House leadership that the lifting of the austerity measure must be done through legislation. He urged them to pass a bill amending the FY 2025 budget to reflect the restoration of 80 working hours.
The governor is also looking into the appropriation levels for the judiciary and the Legislature as well as the 25% benefit of CNMI retirees.
Lawmakers declined to share more details of their meeting with the governor and the lt. governor, but some of them said the requested budget revision reflects an increase in revenue projection for FY 2025, which started on Oct. 1, 2024.
The lawmakers who attended the meeting were Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez, Vice Speaker Joel Camacho, Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation Chair John Paul Sablan and Rep. Marissa Flores.
Also in the meeting were Department of Finance Secretary Tracy B. Norita and Special Assistant for Budget and Management Vicky Villagomez.
In her report last month, Norita said the government’s revenue in the fourth quarter of FY 2024 exceeded the forecast by $8.3 million or 21%. She attributed this “positive improvement” to rising economic activity for the period and the “dedicated efforts” of the Division of Revenue and Taxation’s collection task force to ensure that tax liabilities were paid.
Recently, the Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands reported a 31.6% average occupancy rate among 11 member hotels for October 2024 — a contraction of 37% compared to the same period last year. According to HANMI, hotels typically require around 70-80% hotel occupancy to stay in operation.
The Marianas Visitors Authority, for its part, stated that arrivals to Saipan, Tinian and Rota decreased 23% to 12,254 visitors in November 2024, compared to 15,815 visitors received in November 2023.
