{"id":306635,"date":"2019-08-26T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-08-25T20:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=306635"},"modified":"2019-08-26T06:00:18","modified_gmt":"2019-08-25T20:00:18","slug":"muna-pss-got-23-86m-so-far-11-5m-still-owed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/muna-pss-got-23-86m-so-far-11-5m-still-owed\/","title":{"rendered":"Mu\u00f1a: PSS got $23.86M so far; $11.5M still owed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Education Commissioner Glenn Mu\u00f1a said the $23.86 million that the CNMI government has so far transmitted to the Public School System for fiscal year 2019 is the barest minimum and underfunds the Commonwealth\u2019s education sector.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_306637\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-306637\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/GLEN-MUNA-mug-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-306637\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-306637\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Muna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Under the budget law, Public Law 20-67, PSS was supposed to get a total of $42.86 million in fiscal year 2019, but this amount was severely slashed as a result of the government\u2019s austerity measures in the wake of the economic downturn following Super Typhoon Yutu\u2019s destruction last October.<\/p>\n<p>In his presentation to the Board of Education\u2019s Fiscal, Personnel, and Administration Committee at its meeting last week, Mu\u00f1a said that $7.5 million has already been cut from the fiscal year 2019 budget of PSS due to the ongoing austerity measures; that means PSS will be receiving a total of $35.36 million for its operations this fiscal year. With PSS already getting $23.86 million from the CNMI government so far, Mu\u00f1a said that leaves PSS still waiting for $11.5 million from the central government.<\/p>\n<p>He said PSS wants to avoid going into deficit. In order to avoid that, he said that PSS needs to make sure that the rest of the $11.5 million due is transferred. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to operate the schools with only $23 million,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>Mu\u00f1a was joined by other PSS officials at the meeting.<\/p>\n<p>In a later interview, he said that PSS needs to be mindful of upcoming expenses such as transportation costs, overtime for certain employees as five school are slated to be running double sessions, and other expenses. PSS was able to decrease certain costs, with the summer downtime after schools were completed. <\/p>\n<p>Mu\u00f1a said that they have been in contact with the Department of Finance about the appropriations and understand the current financial situation that they are going through. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Education Commissioner Glenn Mu\u00f1a said the $23.86 million that the CNMI government has so far&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":306637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-306635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-pss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306635","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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}