Sen. Maria T. Pangelinan, D-Saipan, said the Senate is reviewing House Bill 16-247 which will amend Public Law 16-39, “the most recent appropriation” of the tobacco control fund.
Pangelinan also asked acting Finance Secretary Robert Shrack to provide her committee with the balance of the tobacco control fund as of April 20, 2009.
She wants to see a list “sorted by fiscal year, which includes all revenues brought into the fund, all transfers out, their dates, the public law which authorized the transfer, and to which department or agency the transfers were made.”
In a separate letter to the CNMI Scholarship Office, Pangelinan requested for a report “showing all funds” the office “has received” from the tobacco control fund, including dates of transfers or allotments and amounts.
Introduced by Vice Speaker Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero, R-Saipan, H.B. 16-247 “will remove any fiscal year restriction to allow the prior and current appropriations funded by the tobacco control fund to continue.”
The bill also intends to “clarify that P.L. 16-39 does not effect the appropriations under P.L. 15-109,” which re-establishes the post-secondary teacher education scholarship and creates the medical school professional scholarship.
P.L. 16-39 appropriates $1.41 million from the tobacco control fund to finance various health programs.
In her letter to OPA, Pangelinan said her research has shown multiple amendments to the appropriations from the fund since it was created by P.L. 13-38 in Dec. 2002.
These, she added, indicated that the appropriations from the fund have exceeded the actual available amount.
“We are in need of the actual performance of the fund as compared to appropriations,” she said.
P.L. 13-38 increased taxes on tobacco and alcohol products.
Its Section 3 states: “There shall be established a separate fund to be known as the Tobacco Control Fund. There shall be credited to said fund 30 percent of the increase in the cigarette tax…together with any penalties, forfeitures, interest, costs of suits and fines collected in connection therewith, less all amounts refunded or abated in connection therewith, all as determined by the Secretary of Finance based on professionally prepared, written analyses; any appropriation, grant, gift, or other contribution explicitly made to said fund; and any income derived from the investment of amounts credited to said fund.”
Amounts from the fund will be appropriated by the Legislature to finance anti-tobacco health programs.
