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Last-minute funding averts PSS pay cuts
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Posted on Dec 22 1998
On the eve of the day that a 10 percent pay cut was to take effect, the Public School System has received a $1.7 million additional appropriation from the CNMI government to help offset its payroll deficit.
This funding authorized by Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio is expected to push back the scheduled pay cut for PSS even if members of the Board of Education were due to meet last night for the crucial decision.
With an estimated $3.6 million payroll deficit for the entire fiscal year, PSS would still need close to $2 million to move out from payless paydays.
“We all recognize that this is a short-term solution,” Tenorio said in his letter to Commissioner of Education Rita H. Inos. However, he promised to continue working closely with PSS in locating available resources.
Committee Chairman for Health, Education and Welfare Heinz Hofschneider is supporting Tenorio’s action in bailing out PSS from the pending crisis, expected from the pay cut. Such troubles will jeopardize its educational mandate as provided in the Constitution.
“We are helping them. I don’t think that they have realized any cuts, except maybe for some degree of sincerity from central office to downside non-teaching related expenditure,” he said.
Chairman of Ways and Means Committee Rep. Karl T. Reyes was surprised to know that there was extra money available.
With this additional money, he is suspecting that PSS is exempted from the 13.4 percent cut or is given extra on top of its original appropriation.
But Hofschneider reiterated the government’s support for PSS, even eliminating concerns on pay cuts.
“They will get their money. One way or the other, they will get their money,” he said.
This help which the Governor is orchestrating for PSS is directed towards seeing more investment in classroom affairs.
