THE Senate will hold a special session on Monday, April 18 to discuss a House measure that would fund the bonuses for CNMI government retirees.
Authored by Rep. Donald M. Manglona, House Bill 22-95 proposes to amend the Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2022, or Public Law 22-8, to establish a business unit and “properly fund” the retirees’ bonuses.
The bill would appropriate a total of $2.6 million from the governor’s discretionary account, the Office of the Governor, the Department of Finance, the Marianas Visitors Authority, and other sources that were line-item vetoed by Gov. Ralph DLG Torres.
House Vice Speaker Blas Jonathan T. Attao said the bill would not take away funds from MVA.
However, Senate President Jude U. Hofschneider said both MVA and the Department of Finance told senators that the bill would reduce the funds allocated to Finance and MVA.
Hofschneider said the House should have met with the Department of Finance and MVA prior to passing H.B. 22-95.
As requested by the governor in mid-December, the Senate adopted a joint resolution authorizing the reprogramming of funds to pay for the retirees’ bonuses.
But the House did not act on the resolution.
In an interview on Monday, Rep. Tina Sablan said H.B. 22-95 was introduced after a close review of the FY 2022 budget.
“We concluded in the [House] leadership that to do this right, we had to pass an appropriations bill amending the budget and identify the source of funds,” she said.
“Our understanding of what the secretary of Finance presented to us was that [American Rescue Plan Act] funds would be used to ‘backfill’ any shortfalls in funds that were identified from the local government accounts in order to fund the retiree bonus.”
She added, “There was this real sense in the Legislature that if the administration was serious about using ARPA funds to ‘backfill’ these shortages — that was their language — then we could probably afford to use the funds that were then being used to pay tourists, and use those to support MVA’s budgetary needs, and then at the same time, use those local funds that we had identified to pay the retiree bonuses.”
She is hoping that both houses of the Legislature can come to an agreement on funding the bonuses.
“The House has done its part in passing not just one, but two appropriations bills to support the retiree bonus. The speaker has appointed conferees from the House. We still await action from the Senate,” she added.
