As agreed to in the agreement of the special representatives on future federal financial assistance of the Northern Marianas as executed on Dec. 17, 1992, the CNMI provided an equal local match for every dollar of federal 702 CIP funds.
Congress extended this matching requirement through FY 2003 with U.S. Public Law 106-113.
This law also provided only $5,420,000 to the CNMI for Fiscal Year 2003.
“However, through the combined efforts of then-Gov. Juan N. Babauta and myself, we were able to increase the FY 2003 appropriation to $11 million, and the funds represented by the increase over $5.42 million did not require a match,” Tenorio said. “Additionally, the 702 Agreement signed by then-Deputy Interior Assistant Secretary David Cohen and then-Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente on Feb. 9, 2004 did not include a local match requirement.”
Tenorio added, “Unfortunately when the local matching requirement was removed, it did not eliminate the prior local matching funds requirement under the old future federal financial assistance executed in 1992. Therefore, today when our government expends CIP funds appropriated prior to FY 2003, it must spend the local matching dollars first, even if the federal funds have been reprogrammed.”
