The requests for reimbursement submitted by graduates of the Framingham State University face a slim chance of being approved due the lack of funds and unsupported documents for their claims.<\/p>\n
This was according to Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance administrator Henry Hofschneider, who said yesterday that the SHEFA board is expected to take action on the matter at its next meeting.<\/p>\n
Sixteen students who recently graduated from the Framingham Cohort 8 had been refused reimbursements on their tuition and fees for their master\u2019s study in the fall 2010 semester after SHEFA determined that they had no standing claim on their grant awards, amounting to $4,700 for each scholar, or a total of $75,200.<\/p>\n
The students appealed the decision to the SHEFA board and Saipan Mayor Donald Flores, claiming that they had an agreement with the previous board due to their \u201cunique\u201d situation. They insist that they are entitled to the award because they all met SHEFA\u2019s requirements. The previous board, they said, promised to reimburse their expenses once the awards are available.<\/p>\n
Hofschneider said yesterday, however, that after searching for documents that would back the scholars\u2019 claim, no record has been found of such an agreement or amended policy.<\/p>\n
It is therefore improper, he said, to provide an award to these ineligible applicants. <\/p>\n
The Framingham graduates\u2019 complaint was referred to the SHEFA board\u2019s policy and procedures committee, which will come out with a recommendation soon.<\/p>\n
Hofschneider also disclosed that SHEFA has no \u201clapsed funds\u201d for fall 2010 that could be used to reimburse the complaining scholars. He explained that graduate students are second priority of the program and SHEFA rules and regulations provide that awards are subject to availability of funds. <\/p>\n
He said these students in Cohort 8 were all at the graduate level and thus should be ranked second priority, as provided by law.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Hofschneider said there\u2019s no way funding for fiscal year 2011 scholars could be used to cover the reimbursement.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on the reports we received from Finance, SHEFA has no lapsed funds that can be used to cover for the financial assistance awards for second, third, and fourth priorities,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The SHEFA program has cut the amount it awards due to declining poker revenues. For the new semester, the board is eyeing another drastic cut in financial awards and termination of some grants to ensure the continuity of the scholarship program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The requests for reimbursement submitted by graduates of the Framingham State University face a slim chance of being approved due the lack of funds and unsupported documents for their claims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}