THE municipality of Tinian will “grind to a halt” if the House version of fiscal year 2024 budget measure becomes law, Tinian Mayor Edwin P. Aldan told members of the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee, which conducted a budget hearing at the Tinian courthouse on Thursday.
Present in the budget hearing were the committee chairman, Senate Vice President Donald M. Manglona; the vice chair, Senate Floor Leader Corina L. Magofna; and members, Sens. Karl King-Nabors, Jude U. Hofschneider and Dennis Mendiola.
The Tinian leadership requested a $10,754,440 budget for FY 2024 but the House version of House Bill 23-66 or the FY 2024 Appropriations Act allots only $4,722,210 for Tinian while taking into account the $2.7 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds that the former Torres administration wired to the Tinian Treasury last year.
Manglona noted that based on Tinian’s proposed budget, the mayor is requesting $3 million to fund his office personnel.
“I hope that the mayor had an opportunity to review the House version of the budget. And today, he can use his time to share his concerns as well as the use of the ARPA funds last fiscal year, and how much of those are…available for the next fiscal year,” Manglona said.
Aldan said his office has 124 employees, but the House version of the FY 2024 budget would fund only 28 employees, which means 96 will be out of jobs.
The mayor said if the Legislature is unable to reinstate funding for all of his employees in the next fiscal year, “the Tinian municipality will essentially grind to a halt.”
He said the ARPA funds that Tinian received are being spent “every single day…given the lack of operating funds under the revised FY 2023 budget” for the island.
There are no other funding sources for 96 employees of the Tinian Mayor’s Office in FY 2024, he added.
Come Oct. 1, 2023, the start of the new fiscal year, Aldan said he “will be informing…the 96 employees that their contracts will not be renewed.”
However, he said, “it is also the responsibility of the Legislature to explain to the people of Tinian why their positions were cut when other positions in the CNMI are maintained.”
Aldan said his staff have already drafted notices to the affected employees “in case this unfortunate event occurs.”
“It is disheartening to note that our municipality seems to be the only one affected by such a significant reduction in employees. This discrepancy raises questions about the fairness and rationale behind this decision,” Aldan said.
“Most of you know that I have been in politics for over 20 years and never have I seen a budget proposal that excludes or significantly reduces the Tinian Mayor’s Office from the share of the general fund,” Aldan added.
“Not only [is] this budget…unbalanced and unfair, but the people of Tinian will not be given the same level of public service as the rest of the CNMI. It is not just about the numbers that we are discussing here today. It is the people’s basic livelihood that is being eliminated simply because of political pushback,” the mayor said.
He urged the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee members to “remember that you [do] not just represent your respective districts but the entire CNMI as well, inclusive of Tinian needs. This will be the opportunity to prove to the people of Tinian that your actions and decisions on FY 2024 budget will be fair, equitable and just for all the municipalities and the people of the CNMI.”
