![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/borja-tenorio.jpg\")
<\/a>When sought for comments, both Borja and Tenorio said that at the time of their donation, it was permissible to donate their unspent PD funds and that they did so for good causes.<\/p>\n
Tenorio said in a statement that it was explained to her upon joining the board that she can donate her unspent Professional Development funds to any organization that had an educational purpose. She said she immediately thought of the Know Your Worth competition, which is part of the Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Coalition\u2019s Teen Dating Violence Month campaign, which seeks to combat teen dating violence through an art, essay, and spoken word competitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrior to requesting the transfer of PD funds for the benefit of this worthwhile event, I sought advice from the PSS legal counsel and the Federal Programs director. I was advised that there were no legal or ethical issues and that the Know Your Worth competition would certainly provide an educational purpose and benefit students directly. Also, I was excited about this opportunity that I openly shared it with the planning committee and others. However, upon the hiring of a new Federal Programs director, it was brought to my attention that it was impermissible to donate these funds unless they remained within PSS. Once I was made aware of this I immediately ceased any request to donate funds outside of PSS.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked if Tenorio had been asked to return the funds, she said, \u201cNot that I\u2019m aware of.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a final note, she said, \u201cMy request to transfer unspent PD funds was made with the utmost desire and intent to benefit our students and our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Borja, in an interview with\u00a0Saipan Tribune,\u00a0he said that board members were told, \u201cif there is a point where board members don\u2019t spend their funds, they are able to donate money to a cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borja said he donated to the Interact clubs of Saipan, which are Rotary-sponsored clubs of high school students. \u201cLast year, near the end of the fiscal year, I again had unexpended funds, which I donated to those clubs to support their causes. They do beach cleanups, adopt shelters, have events for their schools such as Cultural Day and whatnot\u2014so those are what the funds are for.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he feels that his donation supported students in the school system and one private school to support their service clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t get that money back. The money\u2019s expended. If they want me to pay it back out of pocket, I\u2019ll work out a plan with the school system. That\u2019s fine. But again, I think one board member is trying to strong arm other board members in order to allow them to do an unallowable action. That\u2019s my take,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added that \u201ca board member who was not able to get money out is stating that everyone who received money needs to return the money or they will report it to the Department of Education as misappropriation of funds.\u201d Borja did not identify who he was referring to.<\/p>\n
Borja said it was after he had already dispersed the funds that board members were told by Federal Programs that it\u2019s an unallowable action to donate federal funds to a program outside the school system. \u201c.. We had a board member who still wanted to use funds to different organizations\u2014but we were told no, it\u2019s an unallowable cost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Borja, like Tenorio, said they found this out after a new Federal Programs officer came into office.<\/p>\n
Borja said he feels like he is being \u201cextorted in order to allow them to do unauthorized action just because I did it unknowingly. Once we found out that we\u2019re not allowed to spend money that way, we stopped doing it, we ceased\u2014but they still want to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the upcoming meeting, Borja said it\u2019s his understanding that they will have a full board present.<\/p>\n
The BOE serves as the rule-making authority that oversees and implements policies that govern PSS. It failed to meet the quorum requirement during meetings last Feb. 1, 14, and 24.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill that will reduce the BOE\u2019s quorum requirements from four to three members.<\/p>\n
The BOE consists of five voting members, but the presence of four voting members shall constitute the necessary quorum to conduct meetings. The bill will amend the Commonwealth Code to allow three voting members to constitute a quorum.<\/p>\n
Besides Borja and Tenorio, the other voting members of the BOE are Antonio L. Borja, Andrew L. Orsini, and SGM (ret.) Herman Atalig. The board\u2019s last three meetings did not push through after failing to muster quorum. In those three instances, both Orsini and Atalig did not participate in the scheduled meetings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Infighting within the 18th CNMI State Board of Education appears to be escalating, this time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":387850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-387849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-boe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387849","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\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}