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Separation of PSS budget asked
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Posted on Jan 30 2005
The Governor’s Office and the Legislature received a letter asking both branches of the government to separate the Public School System budget from all other public budget allocations.
Board of Education teacher representative Ambrose Bennett, in a Jan. 24 letter to the Executive and Legislative branches, said the perennial problem regarding PSS funding must be addressed “with a more permanent” solution.
He suggested that separating the budget of PSS would be one remedy since PSS is an autonomous agency, which consumes a lot of local funds, more than any other government agency.
He went on to say that separation should be considered because majority of government officials “claim” to support CNMI education,
Bennett also said that other agencies’ appropriation of budget may be “subject to politics,” and with this separation, PSS will no longer encounter such problems.
The teacher representatuve stated that dividing and separating the funding issues would make the decision process easier and faster.
He also said that the government should only be concerned with providing PSS the funding but not run its operations. He stressed that the Legislature must exert more effort to ensure funding is appropriated “in the full amount and on time” for PSS.
Finally, Bennett said that this move will also guarantee that the Department of Education will not be affected by politics in its most negative way and the autonomous agency’s budget will also make DoE accountable for the shortcomings with the funding.
In a related story, PSS up to this time, is waiting for the remittance of the $2 million from the Department of Finance for its pending payment of operational expenses.
In its last letter to PSS, the DoF promised to transfer the fund by today, Jan. 31.
PSS is positive, according to associate commissioner David M. Borja, that they [DoF] will fulfill its promise to transfer the fund earlier or by Jan. 31, so that they can extend payments to their existing suppliers and vendors who are up for tax revenue remittance, due also today. (Marconi Calindas)
