CNMI's Public Auditor: 30 of 32 Recommendations Still Open
Summary
The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands' own audit watchdog reports that 30 of the 32 recommendations it was tracking as of December 31, 2025 remain unresolved -- including a 2019 finding that election officials had no system to account for ballots received and issued, a hospital billing backlog first flagged in 2017, and an 88 percent jump in government vehicle spending that has gone unexamined since 2020.
A 2019 finding that nobody was counting ballots
The oldest election-related entry on OPA's list traces to Report No. 19-04⧉, an inspection of the Commonwealth Election Commission's (CEC) ballot accountability for the 2018 general election, issued June 18, 2019. Its first finding: "no accountability for the number of ballots received and available." OPA recommended CEC adopt a system to track ballots from receipt through distribution and use. As of the December 2025 status report, that finding is still marked Unresolved -- OPA's own note reads, "Implemented policies and procedures for ballot accountability have not been officially adopted" -- and CEC's self-set target for closing it has slipped to May 2026, itself already past by the time this report was written.
The gap has now outlasted three general elections held since the finding was issued -- 2020, 2022, and 2024 -- and CEC's own published calendar⧉ sets a fourth for November 3, 2026. A related finding in the same report, that CNMI also lacks accountability for total ballots used and unused, carries the identical status: unresolved, same missing adoption, same slipped target date.
View data as table
| Unresolved | 30 | 30 of 32 tracked recommendations remained unresolved |
|---|---|---|
| Resolved | 2 | 2 of 32 tracked recommendations were resolved |
A billing backlog nine years running, and a marina nobody will fix
The oldest finding on OPA's entire list is even older. Report No. 17-01⧉, issued March 16, 2017, found the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation's (CHCC) patient billing was not timely -- a backlog in coding, billing, collection, and payment posting. CHCC's response to OPA nearly nine years later: the corporation is counting on a new electronic health record system to fix it, but "until then, the extra work associated with billing and the current EHR will continue to force a backlog of bills." CHCC's own proposed completion date is now December 31, 2026 -- nearly ten years after the finding was first issued.
The Department of Lands and Natural Resources' (DLNR) Outer Cove Marina has fared no better. Report No. 21-04⧉ found the marina -- the only commercial port in the Commonwealth outside the CNMI Ports Authority's own facilities -- has sat inoperable since September 30, 2019, with no executable plan to repair or demolish it and no established safety standards for the vessels still docked there at their owners' own risk. OPA's blunt verdict on DLNR's latest response: "DLNR did not properly address the recommendation." DLNR's own target for resolving it is now December 2027, more than eight years after the marina went dark.
View data as table
| CHCC billing backlog (2017) | 8.8 | Report 17-01, issued March 2017 -- patient-billing backlog still unresolved |
|---|---|---|
| CEC ballot accountability (2019) | 6.5 | Report 19-04, issued June 2019 -- no ballot chain-of-custody system yet adopted |
| DLNR Outer Cove Marina (2021) | 4.1 | Report 21-04, issued November 2021 -- marina has sat inoperable since 2019 |
| DOF vehicle spending (2022) | 3.4 | Report 22-02, issued August 2022 -- 88% vehicle-spending jump still unexamined |
An 88 percent vehicle-spending jump nobody has explained
Not every open finding is procedural. Auditing the Department of Finance's Division of Procurement Services, OPA found government vehicle expenditures⧉ rose from $3,702,296.77 in FY2020 to $6,949,168.42 in FY2021 -- an increase of $3,246,871.65, or about 88 percent, that the report calls "questionable in terms of fiscal responsibilities" given it came during an economic downturn. OPA recommended the Secretary of Finance analyze whether the number of vehicles issued to CNMI agencies is actually warranted. As of the December 2025 report, the Division of Procurement Services says it "will await further information" and considers that analysis the Secretary's call to make, not its own -- a recommendation neither office has yet closed.
The body meant to push this along hasn't met since 2000
CNMI law anticipated agencies might drag their feet. 1 CMC Section 2307⧉ created an Interagency Audit Coordinating Advisory Group -- the Legislature's presiding officers and minority leader, the Secretary of Finance, and the Special Assistant for Management and Budget -- specifically to review OPA's audit reports and help push closure on outstanding recommendations. OPA's own report states plainly: "Since 2000, OPA has not received any request for consultation from the Coordinating Group." The office says it keeps issuing follow-up letters and emails on its own instead. A quarter-century ago, that follow-through looked different: in OPA's own December 2000 tracking report⧉, the office closed 102 of 264 recommendations it tracked that year, a 39 percent closure rate -- a different-sized docket than today's, but the same basic measure OPA has used to grade agency follow-through since its tracking system began.
- 30 of 32 recommendations CNMI's Public Auditor was tracking remained unresolved as of December 31, 2025 -- a 94 percent open rate, with only 2 closed in the reporting period.
- A 2019 finding that election officials had no system to account for ballots received and available is still open, unresolved through the 2020, 2022, and 2024 general elections, with the next vote set for November 3, 2026.
- CHCC's patient-billing backlog, first flagged in March 2017, now carries a December 2026 target -- nearly ten years after OPA identified it.
- DLNR's Outer Cove Marina has sat inoperable since 2019 with no safety standards and no repair-or-demolish plan; OPA says DLNR still hasn't properly addressed the finding, and the agency's own new target is December 2027.
- Government vehicle spending jumped 88 percent, or $3.2 million, from FY2020 to FY2021 -- a spike OPA calls fiscally questionable that neither the Department of Finance's procurement division nor the Secretary of Finance has yet analyzed.
- The legislative body created to help push closure hasn't convened with OPA since 2000, per OPA's own account, leaving the office to chase agencies through follow-up letters alone.
CNMI's Auditing Act bars OPA from naming individuals or corporations in these tracking reports, and this piece follows that same restriction -- every finding here is attributed to the responsible office or department, not a person. The 30-of-32 figure describes OPA's currently tracked docket, not every recommendation the office has issued historically; it is a snapshot at one reporting date, not an annual closure rate, and the 2000 comparison figure is offered only as historical context, not a like-for-like population. The days-open and years-open figures in this piece are this outlet's own arithmetic on the dates OPA reports; see analysis.json for the exact calculations and caveats. A blind adversarial verifier, working from the primary documents alone with no access to this draft, independently checked every itemized fact in this piece; see verification.json.
Sources(3) ▾
- Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Office of the Public Auditor, Report on CNMI Agencies' Implementation of Audit & Inspection Recommendations, As of December 31, 2025 (Report No. 26-01) (2026-01-22) — CNMI's Office of the Public Auditor's semi-annual Audit Recommendations Tracking System (ARTS) report, transmitted January 22, 2026 to the Interagency Audit Coordinating Advisory Group (the Legislature's presiding officers and minority leader, the Secretary of Finance, and the Special Assistant for Management and Budget). It lists the status, as of December 31, 2025, of every open recommendation from ten prior OPA audit and inspection reports spanning 2017 to 2023, each agency's own corrective-action response, and OPA's independent note on whether that response actually resolves the finding. opa.cnmi.gov · original document
- Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Commonwealth Election Commission, Important Dates for the 2026 General Election (2026-01-01) — The CNMI Commonwealth Election Commission's own published election calendar, used here to establish that the next general election -- the fourth since OPA's 2019 ballot-accountability finding went unresolved -- falls on November 3, 2026. votecnmi.gov.mp · original document
- Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Office of the Public Auditor, Report on CNMI Agencies' Implementation of Audit Recommendations, As of December 31, 2000 (2001-04-10) — The earliest of OPA's own ARTS reports still posted on its website, used here only to source the office's calendar-year-2000 closure rate as a historical baseline for how much of its own tracked recommendation load it resolved in a given reporting period. opa.cnmi.gov · original document
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Every six months, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands' Office of the Public Auditor (OPA) checks whether the territorial government has actually fixed the problems its own audits found. Its latest report⧉, covering the status of 32 recommendations as of December 31, 2025, found that agencies had closed exactly 2 of them. Thirty -- 94 percent -- remained open, some for the better part of a decade.