PSS seeks exemption

Education officials are asking the government to exempt the Public School System from a law that requires every government agency to share one percent of its total budget with the Office of the Public Auditor.

“PSS should be allowed to keep that one percent for itself since we do our own audit,” Board of Education member Marja Lee Taitano said during a committee meeting Wednesday.

Taitano said an official of the Attorney General’s Office has assured her that PSS could request for exemption from the budget-sharing requirement.

The law, which provides this requirement, was designed to keep OPA totally independent from the Governor’s Office and the Legislature, and avoid a situation which would compromise the agency’s auditing activities.

Education Commissioner Rita Inos and the board committee members have agreed to write to AGO and seek formal opinion on the possibility of PSS getting an exemption.

Of PSS’ $37.7 million budget for FY 1999, $377,000 — which accounts for one percent — was not transmitted to the education agency as it found its way to OPA’s treasury.

Taitano said the budget-sharing setup gives OPA advantages at the expense of school children.

“OPA’s office is like a first-class suite, we need a first class suite for our children,” Taitano said.

Inos said PSS doesn’t get the worth of money it gives to the auditing office because the education agency doesn’t get auditing service from OPA at all.

Inos recalled an instance when PSS requested OPA to do an audit for the education agency’s financial balances. OPA responded with an eight-page letter denying its request, Inos said.

“OPA said they’re too busy to do that,” Inos recalled.

Bill Matson, PSS fiscal officer, said the education agency could have used the $377,000 to cover its personnel costs.

“Since we were not allowed to use our personnel money, we have to accommodate those costs out of the operational funds,” Matson said. (MCM)