The House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday to allow the CNMI Scholarship Office to provide financial assistance to eligible high school students with dual or early enrollment at a postsecondary institution.<\/p>\n
Senate Bill 19-81, SS1 also allows financial assistance extended to those already in the workforce aspiring for higher education.<\/p>\n
The bill, authored by Sen. Justo Quitugua (Ind-Saipan), is intended to allow CNMI high school students and fulltime employees seeking part-time school enrollment to receive scholarship awards to pay for college, tuition, books, and expenses.<\/p>\n
The House, in passing the bill, approved a floor amendment dealing with \u201cresidency\u201d requirements.<\/p>\n
It was amended so that \u201cperson(s) under the age of 18 may also be deemed \u2018residents\u2019 if all other criteria is met other than being a registered voter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill was earlier written to allow use of a parent\u2019s voter registration information to satisfy voter registration requirements for persons who cannot register to vote because they are below the age of 18.<\/p>\n
The bill allows financial assistance to be extended to employees in the CNMI who enroll, part-time or full-time, at the Northern Marianas College.<\/p>\n
Rep. Blas Jonathan Attao (Ind-Saipan) disagrees with this provision, saying that the Scholarship Board already has this as regulation and the lawmakers should not take away their \u201cflexibility\u201d by turning regulations into law.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tie their hands making changes to their own regulations that they see fit. Times change, so needs may change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He stressed the scholarship board know what they are doing and dealing with hundreds of recipients.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the legislation we are going to only limit employees within the Commonwealth to receive the scholarship program but it didn\u2019t say anything about taking care of the full time students first. Let\u2019s say they do take care of the full time students and then they run out of money? What do you tell the part time students? It doesn\u2019t say anything about who goes first, part time or full time.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he understand that that bill gives them power to set this by regulation<\/p>\n
He said in the near future if the CNMI needs more professional positions or technical positions would they have to go back to the law and change the it? He stressed keeping the scholarship board \u201cflexible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gave them the authority to become an agency outside the governor\u2019s office\u2026in the 18th Legislature and gave them more strength to stand a lone and here we go to commemorate regulations by law, I don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attao added he understood the bill author\u2019s concerns and respects the legislation, but said there are certain things that lawmakers should leave alone so it could be taken cared of by regulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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