‘Schools need to be more cautious in spending’

CNMI State Board of Education member Marylou S. Ada is asking school principals and administrators to become cautious in spending their annual budget. She is advising that all schools should make an annual plan on the things they would need for the entire school year.

Ada said that she was disappointed to see that some schools spend the money in buying non-essential things so they could zero out the fund that was given to them. “When I was BOE chair a few years ago, I was so disappointed on things that I’m seeing on their [purchase orders].”

“These are last-minute things that they are buying so they could spend all of their money. Don’t they plan in the beginning on what are the things they wanted to buy for the school year?.” added Ada, who did not elaborate on what are some of the items.

She said that these are not the usual things that you would buy for the schools. “It is not really something that would benefit the students or the school. These are things like really something that is out of the ordinary.”

“Like it won’t last long. It is not for long-term use. They just want to spend and zero out their budget. Sometimes they don’t plan,” Ada added.

She said that for example the school is allocated $40,000 and by the end of the year they still have $30,000 and they would spend it buying non-important things just to have a zero amount or else the remaining money would be taken away from them.

“It could have gone to fixing classrooms, renovating the bathrooms, fixing their WiFi, or anything that would improve the school and benefit the students. But when I see this entire PO, because they wanted to spend all of their money by the end of the fiscal year. It really makes me sad that something that would need,” said Ada.

Budget meeting

PSS human resources director Cindy Deleon Guerrero, in last week’s Senate budget hearing, said that they always meet and sit down with all the school principals and administrators, and program managers to go through their budget needs.

“When preparing the budget, we call on the principals and program managers. Sit down with them and we go through their staffing patterns and give them the opportunity to tell us what their schools need so that we can include it on the budget request,” said Deleon Guerrero.

“It goes through a series of planning events, not only once. The budget we submit and propose is always the collaboration and work of all administrators and school principals. If there is a cut, it is between what we requested and what we received. We request what we need, what the principals ask for, what we get is a different story.”