They can hire their supporters, provide picnic tables and tents, buy fundraising tickets and act as go-fers for their constituents who complain about bad roads, low water supply or CUC’s disconnection notice. They can introduce quick-fix, sloppily drafted bills which they enact into laws that, soon, will either be amended, repealed or ignored. But they can’t pass a budget, which is their primary duty. Worse, they have no new ideas to offer to old problems that are getting worse.
Not surprisingly, they won’t even complain that the governor has usurped the Legislature’s power over the CNMI’s purse strings by giving himself reprogramming authority to address yet another CUC crisis.
The governor has issued a new declaration of emergency. But mismanaging government resources is dereliction of duty and not an emergency. The governor, moreover, has other options available to him. He can, for example, refrain from hiring more nonessential employees. He can convene a special session of the Legislature for the passage of a budget bill that imposes across-the-board spending cuts. He can use other management techniques to meet the shortfall. Wasn’t that part of his credentials as a candidate, his “extensive business management background”?
About the LB archives
THE Legislative Bureau apparently believes that it can simply close a function that is budgeted to meet a shortfall. If a program is budgeted and there are funds appropriated for its function, the agency head cannot simply discontinue the public service and claim that there is a lack of funds. It takes a law to cease program activities. The Legislature can eliminate programs and withhold their funding, but agency heads cannot discontinue programs that are legally created and funded.
Did the Legislature pass a bill affecting this function? Were the funds reprogrammed for some other use?
Adapting to funding limitations is commendable, but government entities should know that there is a proper and legal way to do it. Ignoring the rules, however admirable the intention, may soon lead to bigger infractions and real harm to the public.
Pay CUC
CUC’s executive director says his work is done and he is moving on (to the Retirement Fund?). But the utility continues to struggle with fuel payments, threatening its ability to provide power and water. Even if the utility raises rates to meet operational costs, it will always suffer from shortfalls because the government doesn’t pay its CUC bills. This means that the general public continues to subsidize government operations.
Government agencies must pay their water and power bills. Their budgets should include these items. Instead of all the nonessential hiring, contracting and travel that the government generally pays for, funds should go to water and power bills.
The government must adopt a solution that requires a commitment of more than one month. It can hire qualified staff for the utility or contractors to develop a plan for solvency, but if CUC cannot collect from government agencies for past or current amounts due, then it will always run out of money to pay for fuel, comply with federal regulations or improve its services.
Government officials, in any case, must make the required tough decisions. If they can’t then they should resign so that the people can choose better leaders.
A state of decline
U.S. COMMERCE officials met with lawmakers recently to describe the process by which the gross domestic product is measured. Available data already suggests that the commonwealth was the only U.S. territory that registered a decline in its gross product every year since 2002, the first year statistics were collected to measure the GDP.
But you don’t need this sophisticated yardstick to know that things are in a state of decline. The private sector knows full well the extent of cutbacks that have been made and will continue to be made. Families, too, know that more cuts have to be made. The government has made cuts but they’re the wrong ones as they will hurt the economy even more.
In the fifth year of this pro-business and pro-economy administration, there is no confidence in the CNMI, no spending and no revenue. The downward spiral continues
The only good news is to be found in the private sector where employees continue to work with management to meet their companies’ financial challenges — and in the community as artists in school and out of school mount great artwork at various exhibitions; musicians share their talent at concerts and special events; and nonprofits tap volunteers for the collective good.
Instead of looking to this bloated, wasteful and inefficient government for relief, it is time for residents to take their own futures firmly in hand and rely on themselves for solutions.
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