SAIPAN Mayor Ramon “RB” Camacho said 10 former employees of his predecessor and four current employees of his office received lump sum payments of accrued annual leave without his authorization.
According to the Department of Finance’s Munis system, the former employees are Henry Hofschneider, Joann Aquino, Larissa Flores, Luise Villagomez, Joaquin Deleon Guerrero, Melvin Sablan, Michael Cruz, Keisha Nepaial, Joseph Palacios, and Youki Kishimoto. Most of these individuals now work for the former mayor, Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang.
Current mayor’s office employees Teresita Camacho, Jeffrey Cabrera, Christopher Borja, and Barbara Yamada also received lump sum payments for their accrued annual leave.
Asked for comment, Apatang said, “Get your story straight. I am not involved as I am not the expenditure authority for the Saipan Mayor’s Office. I have not authorized anyone or called the Finance Department to authorize any payments. Don’t try to ruin my name. I’ve been in this business for the longest time and I don’t do anything illegal.”
In a letter dated July 6, 2023 to Secretary of Finance Tracy Norita, Mayor Camacho said he was shocked to discover that there was less money in the Office of the Saipan Mayor’s account than what was supposed to be there in the beginning of the third quarter of the current fiscal year.
He said based on their preliminary inquiries, “it is becoming clear that these missing funds from my account was a result of several lump sum payments of accrued annual leave made out to former and current employees of the mayor’s office.”
Curiously, Mayor Camacho said, “these payments were all processed, routed, and funds from the MOS’ account were used for all these payouts without my knowledge.”
According to Mayor Camacho, the payouts were disbursed on May 19, 2023, May 27, 2023, June 2, 2023, June 14, 2023, and June 28, 2023.
He said a total of $98,137.34 was taken out of the mayor of Saipan’s account without his authorization and knowledge.
Camacho said the MOS human resource office did not receive a single request for payments from any of the 14 lump sum payment recipients.
“If none of these 14 lump sum payment recipients submitted a request to the MOS HR office, which is the first step in the process, then how did any of their documents get processed and routed to the point of each of them getting fully paid?” he asked.
“As if this is not bad enough, we have financial documents that show that even non-Mayor of Saipan employees were paid lump sum payments for accrued annual leave using the MOS budget,” he said.
“In fact, these non-MOS employees were not even employed in the municipality of Saipan — they are government employees of Rota. My staff are working and still trying to determine how much of my office’s account was raided and by whom to make these payments to these Rota employees. This in itself deserves its own separate investigation,” Mayor Camacho added.
“In the interest of transparency and accountability,” the mayor requested the Finance secretary to look into the lump sum payments and restore to the Saipan mayor’s account the funds “improperly charged against it.”
Mayor Camacho’s chief of staff Priscilla Iakopo, in a separate interview on Wednesday, said they discovered the discrepancy when they were reviewing payroll and learned that a current employee got an annual leave buyout.
“How can you do that? we asked. A current and still working employee will get annual leave buyout, especially at a time of a government financial crisis?”
Iakopo said after learning about the missing funds, she initiated an in-office investigation and reviewed the Munis entries. They then reported the missing funds to the Office of the Attorney General, the Office of the Public Auditor, the governor and the Finance secretary.
“Mayor Camacho has requested to meet with the secretary of Finance in regards to this. However, it has yet to happen,” she added.
