Even PSS should be accountable—Pangelinan

When it comes to expending public funds, everybody has to be accountable, even the Public School System, according to Sen. Maria Frica T. Pangelinan in defending the Legislature’s proposed $36.4 million budget for PSS this fiscal year.

In an interview with Saipan Tribune yesterday, Pangelinan said she has high respect for the Board of Education and that she is willing to sit down with board members so that education officials will have a better understanding of how PSS is budgeted.

BOE vice chair Herman T. Guerrero had reportedly complained that the lawmakers’ “bad mathematics” would affect the education of the islands’ schoolchildren.

PSS’ current budget is at $35 million.

Pangelinan, who chairs the Senate Committee on Fiscal Affairs, said she wants to make education officials understand that “the reduction in costs is actually for nonexistent costs.”

She said PSS officials should understand that there is actually no cut in their budget and that the data from 2003 up to the present would show that the Legislature really gives education a priority.

“It’s public money and everybody has to be accountable. Just because [the expenditure is] in the name of education and students doesn’t mean they [PSS officials] cannot be questioned or be held accountable,” Pangelinan said.

Pangelinan pointed out that federal money was not a factor in the Legislature’s formulation of the PSS budget.

“But since they highlighted to the media what the federal money is paying on certain expenditures, we also want to make sure that in this time of austerity, the general fund is not duplicating funding [for expenses that are] already being paid for under federal programs money,” the senator said.

Pangelinan said the bottom line is that the CNMI does not have the levels of revenues it did five years ago.

“The Legislature worked very hard to preserve as much funding for PSS as possible,” she added.

However, she said, they cannot afford to maintain the same level of funding for everyone despite giving education a priority.

Pangelinan cited that even the states in the U.S. mainland recognize that they have to cut down funding, even for kindergarten to 12th grade and public colleges.

“The CNMI is not exempted from this crisis,” she emphasized.

The senator said she has been reviewing the 2003 to 2007 audit report of PSS to give her a better understanding of how they’re operating. She urged BOE to start looking at the 2003 to 2007 audit reports and all the federal monies that are being received by PSS.

Pangelinan said that Senate President Pete Reyes and House Speaker Arnold Palacios have already stated that work on the 2010 budget “begins tomorrow.”

She said they would like to sit down with education officials and work on the process that is needed.

“We want to make sure that, like everybody else, the priority is our students’ learning improvement, and the funds reaching the schools. I don’t have any problem with that and that’s the reason why we expect accountability, especially in this time of economic turmoil and dwindling resources,” Pangelinan said.