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NMC wants part-time faculty in appropriations
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Posted on Feb 13 2005
Northern Marianas College wants the Legislature to include part-time NMC faculty and staff in the general appropriations, saying this would allow the college to use over $500,000 in tuition and fees for program development instead of personnel expenses.
NMC’s current appropriation of over $8 million covers only the payment to full-time personnel. Tuition and fees provide for overload pay and for the salaries and wages of adjunct instructors, which cost $515,200 per year.
“Overload pay and the salaries of adjunct instructors are personnel costs too. Our lawmakers should consider this when computing NMC’s budget, rather than leaving the college to take it from tuition and fees. We could be using these funds to improve our programs,” said NMC president Tony Deleon Guerrero.
He also recalled that more than 10 years ago, the Legislature granted the college authorization to hire 62 new, full-time employees.
However, the college has received only enough funding for 24 new employees so far, Deleon Guerrero said.
Officials of the college, he said, are trying to schedule a meeting with the governor and the Legislature to discuss funding issues, including NMC’s entitlement under Public Law 10-66.
P.L. 10-66 states that except for $725, 000 that should be reserved for other purposes, all fees collected from the issuance of alien work permits should be given to NMC to fund business, tourism, industrial or technical, or professional programs.
At $250 per permit, the government collects about $7.75 million annually from the 31,000 nonresident workers in the Commonwealth.
But out of the approximately $7 million that should be remitted to the college, NMC receives only an average of $1.4 million every year, Deleon Guerrero said.
Passed in August 1997, P.L. 10-66 aims to strengthen training programs for residents in technical and professional fields.
The law requires that $75,000 be reserved for Tinian and another $75,000 be reserved for Rota for youth employment training programs on those islands.
In addition, $575,000 should be put aside for the Division of Labor for use in enforcing the provisions of the act and to help meet the financial requirement and added workload created by the provisions of the law.
