A reported request from the Office of the Governor to slash the Public School System\u2019s budget by another 50% is now being characterized as a \u201cmiscommunication\u201d between the central government and Education Commissioner Dr. Alfred Ada.<\/p>\n
At the continuation of a meeting of the Board of Education\u2019s Fiscal, Personnel and Administration Committee yesterday, Ada clarified that the request for the PSS budget reduction was actually just a \u201cwhat if\u201d scenario in case the economy will go awry.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a miscommunication. They were asking us where would we reduce because our budget, 95% goes to personnel, so I was looking at our personnel salary,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The FPA committee unanimously voted yesterday to uphold the status quo and no salary deductions will be made. <\/p>\n
Ada added that the idea to reinstate the compensation plan of 2016 was the only proactive contingency plan he could think up to keep PSS afloat in case they were required to reduce their budget by another 50%. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe reduction was a proactive plan. We have to make sure that we have a cushion and be safe down the line, at least two or three paydays down the line. I don\u2019t want to be the one to tell the staff, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re not getting paid this week because there is no money generated.\u2019 Secretary of Finance David Atalig and Gov. Ralph DLG Torres assuring us that there would be no payless payday for PSS is a sigh of relief for me and for everybody,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Despite the miscommunication, Ada said that he is very happy to know that PSS has a plan in case the economy goes down. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always believed in being proactive and making sure that we have a contingency plan in place. These scenarios are just in case it happens [so] there will be no surprise,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Ada said that after meeting with Atalig after the FPA committee meeting last Tuesday, things are looking up for PSS. <\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026In terms of\u2026all\u2026obligations, we are now up to date. We are now in the second quarter and we are comfortable with the fact that everyone will be receiving their payroll on time,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A reported request from the Office of the Governor to slash the Public School System\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-315342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-pss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315342","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}