Acting Gov. Eloy S. Inos acknowledged on Thursday that the central government has an outstanding debt of over $3 million to the Public School System, representing unremitted allotments for its personnel cost in fiscal year 2011.<\/p>\n
From an original appropriation of $32 million for PSS last fiscal year, the amount was reduced to $28 million after an across-the-board budget reduction. PSS finance director Richard Waldo said that of the reduced budget, only $25 million was actually received by PSS\u2014short of $3 million. He described the amount as \u201crollover\u201d funds that should be added to this fiscal year\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n
Although the administration acknowledged its debt to PSS, Inos admitted to Saipan Tribune that he cannot give a definite timeframe as to when this will be actually paid.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, we owe them that amount\u2026and whatever is owed will still have to be paid,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune during the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Puerto Rico transmission and distribution waterline project Thursday.<\/p>\n
The acting governor added that they have no intention to prolong the unpaid obligation, but due to the current cash-flow problem of the government, it would be difficult to pay them right away.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have no intention of prolonging this\u2026as along as our cash-flow permits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Besides the $3 million unremitted allotments, Inos also acknowledged the prior year\u2019s unpaid obligation to PSS\u2014$1.7 million in FY 2010 budget.<\/p>\n
Saipan Tribune learned that PSS and the administration have recently inked a memorandum of understanding indicating that the central government will absorb the utility bills of PSS this school year to offset the $1.7 million debt incurred in FY 2010.<\/p>\n
Waldo, in an interview with Saipan Tribune, admitted that PSS is facing a challenging year due to the limited allocation from the local government, which provided the system $30 million for all its personnel and operational costs.<\/p>\n
The finance director said PSS is still facing a shortfall of $900,000 for CUC bills this school year, because schools utilized approximately $2.6 million annually in utilities.<\/p>\n
Waldo said that PSS is counting on the federal grants and awards that will save the system from its anticipated huge shortfall.<\/p>\n
Due to the meager local budget for schools, PSS increased the number of students in classrooms with a minimum of 28 students per teacher. It also frozen positions such as vice principals and non-certified posts. Recently, its central offices were transferred to Marianas High School to save on rental and power, amounting to about $300,000 yearly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Acting Gov. Eloy S. Inos acknowledged on Thursday that the central government has an outstanding debt of over $3 million to the Public School System, representing unremitted allotments for its personnel cost in fiscal year 2011.<\/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-156056","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\/156056","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=156056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}