Finance breaks promise—again

By Marconi Calindas
Reporter

The Department of Finance failed to live up to its promise to remit by Jan. 31 the remaining balance of the money it owes the Public School System.

This was confirmed by associate commissioner David M. Borja, who expressed disappointment yesterday over the Finance Department’s failure to once again remit the $1.1 million representing the balance of the “all others” account for fiscal year 2004 and first quarter of FY 2005 of PSS.

“I’m disappointed,” he said, “I was hoping that we could pay our vendors whom we owe payments since 2004.”

The Office of the Governor assured on Monday, though, that PSS would get the money due them.

“We are working on it right now,” said Gov. Juan N. Babauta, referring to the $5.1 million in Compact Impact funds for 2004, which, he said, has already been remitted by the federal government and is already in the bank.

Finance Secretary Fermin Atalig met with PSS treasurer Richard Waldo last week to discuss the fund transfers made to PSS since Jan. 7. Atalig computed for the balance owed to PSS and said that DoF transferred $1.9 million for the first week of January and remitted $1.3 million last Jan. 21, for a total of $3.2 million.

PSS had a total of $3.9 million request for payment from DoF and the remaining balance will be transferred to PSS within the week, according to Atalig. Based on this computation, Finance only owes PSS about $700,000.

However, Borja clarified that PSS still owes them a total of $1.1 million for its “all others” account, not $700,000 as Atalig computed. Borja said that the $1.3 million DoF remitted last Jan. 21 was for payroll period no.2 only and was not included in the $3.9 million claims of PSS.

Borja said he still feels a bit upset that the funds were not transferred as promised. He said he was surprised with the reports claiming that DoF had already remitted a total of $2.8 million from the $3.9 million being claimed by the PSS.

Borja said that, if that were the case, the $2.8 million would only cover the balance on payroll period Nos. 25 and 26 for 2004 and payroll period No. 1 for 2005.

He noted that there is still a $1.1 million balance for the “all others” account for 2004 and first quarter 2005 owed to PSS.

Earlier Atalig said that DoF would only transfer an approximate amount of $600,000 to PSS. Borja said this would mean that DoF would still owe the PSS some $500,000 because, as far as they know, DoF still owes them $1.1 million.

Borja also pointed out that the PSS made a mistake in calculating the payments owed by the government, saying that PSS forgot to include the payment for the payroll and housing of its Reserved Officers Training Corps officers, amounting to $92,000. He said this should be added to the “all others” balance for 2004. PSS already sent a letter to DoF last Monday explaining the additional payment.

Atalig assured that PSS’ payroll for the week is covered, so PSS employees and staff need not worry.

“We have different funds for that,” Atalig said, adding that the funds for this week’s payroll will be remitted soon.

He said the money would come from both local funds and a portion of the Compact Impact funds.

Atalig had assured PSS last Jan. 7, that it would get the funds to cover all pay periods and arrears by Jan. 31, 2005 or earlier.

Board of Education board member Herman T. Guerrero earlier predicted that Atalig’s promise to remit the remaining balance by Jan. 31 would be one of the government’s several “broken promises.”

Borja said that the transfer of the fund would mean a lot to the office due to the pending payments to the vendors who have threatened to sue PSS. All vendors and suppliers have already sought the assistance of law firms to collect money from them.

Late last year the governor committed to give all Compact Impact fund for the year 2005 to PSS in the next four years. But Guerrero said that this was just a political move from the government and PSS has not received any cash yet.