{"id":299998,"date":"2019-05-22T06:00:47","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=299998"},"modified":"2019-05-22T06:00:47","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T20:00:47","slug":"pss-mulls-pay-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/pss-mulls-pay-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"PSS mulls pay cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Education Commissioner Glenn Mu\u00f1a explains the Public School System\u2019s austerity plans yesterday at the Standing Committee Meeting on Fiscal, Personnel and Administration at the BOE conference room on Capitol Hill. (Bea Cabrera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the wake of government-wide budget cuts, the Public School System is scrambling for ways to reduce its own expenses, with pay cuts among the several austerity measures under consideration to help it meet its many obligations.<\/p>\n

Proposals like salary cuts for personnel earning more than $23,000 annually and a cash plan\u2014best described as for \u201csurvival mode\u201d\u2014were discussed during a Board of Education Fiscal, Personnel and Administration Committee meeting the BOE conference room on Capitol Hill yesterday.<\/p>\n

Due to the decline in revenue collections in the first and second quarters of the current fiscal year, the Office of Management and Budget has implemented a 15-percent cut across all government agencies, including PSS. However, this percentage cut has not been formally communicated to PSS yet.<\/p>\n

Education Commissioner Glen Mu\u00f1a pointed out that the budget deficits are just projections at the moment. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not received the definite percentage that we have to cut so we are just taking a practical approach that will help us so we can start to communicate with the Legislature,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the House Ways & Means Committee meeting last Monday, PSS asked for an operating budget of $67 million for fiscal year 2020. However, based on the proposed budget submitted by Gov. Ralph DLG Torres to the Legislature, the government has only allotted it $36.7 million.<\/p>\n

According to PSS Finance director Christopher Ching, austerity measures are already in place at PSS, including a salary freeze. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis means no within-grade increases and, whenever someone resigns and it is locally funded, the full-time equivalent is evaluated whether it needs to be replaced or we can manage the school year and fiscal year without that employee,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Local travel has been suspended. The operating budget at the PSS central office has been adjusted. Energy conservation has been re-emphasized.
\n\u201cNow we are even proposing [operating fund cuts] at the school level,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Ching said an operational budget cut in secondary schools for fiscal year 2019 has not been implemented yet as it is all on hold, pending discussion with school administrators.<\/p>\n

Because of these cost-cutting measures, PSS has already been able to save $3 million, Ching said, but the total amount they have to save is $7.2 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision to implement further budget cuts is a decision the board has to make, whether it\u2019s cutting personnel or decide to incur obligations that we cannot pay such as [the Commonwealth Utilities Corp],\u201d he added. \u201c\u2026hope next fiscal year when the economy is better that we can lobby to obtain funds for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salary cuts<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the event PSS needs to further cut its operational costs down the road\u2014after fiscal year 2019\u2014Mu\u00f1a said that they might need to cut the salary of personnel. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we started identifying what operational cost we can cut, we try to protect employees as much as possible,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said. \u201cIf we do need to do further cuts, our recommendation would be to do a salary cut on personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, instead of an across-the-board pay cut, Mu\u00f1a recommends a formula. \u201cWhat we are looking at is, for example, a vice principal before the compensation plan was earning $60,000 and now they are making $93,000. We will get the difference and divide it in half. This way, they will get the cut but won\u2019t bring them down to $60,000. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026The group that we are looking at would be from those earning $23,787 to $125,000 a year,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Mu\u00f1a believes that this method will soften the blow, \u201cmost especially among certified staff\u2026 \u201cIt would still create an impact but it will be not so hard for the teachers. \u2026In terms of the savings that we will derive from that, we don\u2019t have the numbers yet as we just finished the budget hearing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we get the board\u2019s blessing on this proposal, we will go back to the table and crunch the number of every single employee, answer questions like what was their salary before the compensation plan and then come up with a revised one,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

BOE chair Janice Tenorio, who attended the meeting via a telephonic conference, said that pay cuts will hurt teachers. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to look for other ways of cutting because these teachers are the front-liners that we should not touch. \u2026We need to protect them,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026This is a temporary solution. \u2026I am passionate about our front-liners and I see we are not doing this right.\u201d <\/p>\n

BOE vice chair Herman Atalig echoed Tenorio\u2019s sentiments but, citing the budget cut implemented by the central government, he said it would be quite a feat not to include salary cuts. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo not to include most people\u2026and maybe teachers in the austerity measure is, to my mind, insane,\u201d he said. \u201cThe hill that they [government] are giving us to climb is steep that not everyone would survive when we get up there.\u201d <\/p>\n

In order for PSS not to go in the red, the salary cuts of teachers will be inevitable, Mu\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n

He said that most of the money that PSS gets goes to the school level and to pay for its certified staff\u2014\u201cthat is where the bulk of the money is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you want to make cuts and see savings so that we don\u2019t end up in the red, that means we have to shift our conversations to include [salary cuts],\u201d he said. \u201cAs much as I don\u2019t want to cut [the salaries of] our certified staff, eventually we will have to.\u201d <\/p>\n

BOE member Marylou Ada stressed that the board should be united on this austerity measure. \u201cWe are all in this together and we must do it together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The board has yet to vote on Muna\u2019s recommendation on the salary cut for staff.<\/p>\n

The next PSS board meeting will be held on May 30, 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of government-wide budget cuts, the Public School System is scrambling for ways…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":299999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-299998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-pss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299998","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\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}