Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero speaks during a session.
SENATE President Edith Deleon Guerrero is requesting the Office of the Public Auditor to look into the indirect cost revenue that the Office of Grants Management and State Clearinghouse received from fiscal years 2012 to 2022.
Earlier this month, Deleon Guerrero requested acting Public Auditor Dora I. Deleon Guerrero to audit OGM-SC, specifically 20% of OGM-SC’s indirect cost revenue that should be deposited into a special account for sub-grants.
After hearing from OGM-SC Administrator Epiphanio Cabrera regarding the issue, Deleon Guerrero wrote OPA again, this time, asking to audit indirect cost revenue from FYs 2012 to 2022.
The Senate president also asked the acting public auditor to see how indirect cost revenue was allocated and spent. She noted that pursuant to Public Law 19-49, which created OGM-SC, approximately 35% of the total indirect cost revenue by fiscal year “shall be allocated to OGM-SC for its own budget.”
The rest is supposed to be deposited into the general fund to be appropriated for government operations each fiscal year.
In his testimony before the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee last month, Cabrera said OGM-SC receives about $3.2 million to $3.6 million indirect cost revenue from federal grantors annually. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, his office collected only a little over $2 million.
He said Finance authorized OGM-SC to use $709,210 of the amount, so there is still $1,317,104 in indirect cost revenue in the general fund.
Indirect cost revenue is the reimbursement received by the CNMI from the federal government for the local funds that the Commonwealth initially spent on a federally funded project.
