THE NMI Bar Association, in a pompously verbose letter to the editor we published on Monday, made at least two claims unsupported by what even lawyers call “facts.” The bar argues that cutting the salaries of the CNMI’s overpaid justices/judges will send a “wrong message”; and that these salaries are “perceived” by the public to be “high.”
This may be news to the bar, but PSS, CHC, DPS, NMC are underfunded. The government cannot pay the rebates it owes taxpayers. CUC has no money for fuel. The Retirement Fund is withdrawing tens of millions of dollars from its investment portfolio to ensure that retirees and their dependents get their pension checks. Meeting government payroll is a biweekly nightmare for the Department of Finance. Meanwhile, out here in the real world, businesses are shutting down and workers are getting paid less if not being laid off. The CNMI’s economy, or what’s left of it, is not expected to improve in the next two or three years, at least.
But according to the bar, taxpayers should continue overpaying judges and justices. So what “message” does the bar is sending to ordinary government workers, public school students, medical referral patients, government vendors/suppliers, low-income taxpayers?
The bar says it “understands that there is a public perception that, compared to other CNMI government employees, judicial salaries are high.” But that’s not a perception. It’s a fact. The judiciary’s salaries are high, this government is broke and the economy is dying. Surely the bar is not saying that public education, public health and public safety should sustain deeper budget cuts so that the justices and judges can continue drawing over $100,000 a year while the economy bites the dust.
The bar invokes “competitive market forces” while ignoring the market realities that have already brought this government to its knees. The bar, moreover, believes that high salaries “attract” the most highly qualified — without acknowledging that this “theory” has been mercilessly refuted by the actions and pronouncements of other overpaid CNMI government officials, past and present.
This bankrupt and bloated government, and that includes the judiciary, has to cut costs. The passage of Senate Bill 16-26 is a step in the right direction. More cost-cutting measures should be implemented.
THE governor says he abolished the Commonwealth Port Authority board because it failed “to get a quorum at a number of its meetings,” which resulted in a “a technical default on the March 1, 1998 indenture on [CPA] airport revenue bonds.” This is a most interesting construction for taking over an autonomous government agency, even if it is for only 120 days.
Most of the board members are the governor’s appointees, long-time friends, business associates or political allies. It’s hard to imagine that they would jeopardize the governor’s tenure by not showing up to important board meetings, particularly given the immense importance of addressing the defects supposedly cited by the bond trustee, the Bank of Guam. Yet CPA’s report to the Legislature satisfied the trustee and there was no indication that an executive order was even a consideration. One day after announcing his takeover, the governor hedges his move with a declaration of emergency. The CPA board members, not surprisingly, are unavailable for comment.
All this doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Emergency declarations are supposed to be carefully crafted, used sparingly and only in genuine emergencies, which do not include no-show board members, who, incidentally, can be fired and replaced by the governor. Making the bond trustee nervous also doesn’t constitute an emergency.
Things will continue to go down hill from this point. The governor apparently knows all the players well and figures that without a real opposition, he is free to do as he pleases.
This is the second independent agency he has taken over. CUC and CPA are financially troubled but valuable entities. They have functions that can be provided by contractors in whole or in part. Privatization prospects involving these two agencies are simply too rich to be ignored by this pro-certain businesses administration.
So stay tuned.
