PSS freezes 55 positions due to budget uncertainties

About 55 positions in the CNMI Public Schools System will remain vacant this fiscal year until funding is found that will allow them to hire more people, according to Education Commissioner Rita A. Sablan.

She said she ordered the hiring freeze as PSS is short of funds to be able to hire all needed personnel.

Sablan said the 55 frozen positions are a combination of certified and non-certified personnel. Certified employees include classroom teachers and school administrators.

“We have frozen 50-some positions in addition to the energy conservation that we’re doing now and this will take effect [until] the rest of the fiscal year. PSS currently has 55 vacancies which we have not filled and we’re not going fill,” she told Saipan Tribune in an interview after last week’s board meeting.

According to Sablan, PSS is looking at ways on how to survive this fiscal year and the next. Among these worst-case scenarios being bandied about are the possible adoption of an across-the-board pay cut for employees.

PSS has about 900 employees on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota that are paid using local funds. Of that number, more than 500 are classroom teachers.

The PSS payroll amounts to about $1.1 million every two weeks.

PSS was allocated $30 million for fiscal year 2012. Some $28 million will pay for the salaries of personnel while $2 million will go to operation and all other expenses of schools.

PSS, according to Sablan, hopes to collect $11 million in receivables from the central government representing the maintenance-of-effort requirements in fiscal years 2010 and 2011.

In January, PSS implemented an across-the-board energy conservation policy that shortened the air-conditioning consumption of schools and offices in order to reduce energy costs, estimated at $400,000 each month.

Sablan said that PSS has requested Gov. Benigno R. Fitial to help PSS pay for its utilities by tapping federal monies from the Office of the Insular Affairs.

At the start of the school year, the system increased class sizes to maximize teachers and resources. The PSS central offices also relocated to its own property to save about $250,000 in annual rent and utilities.

Despite these challenges, Sablan said that no school program will be affected or suspended. “We cannot suspend our programs because we are mandated to provide educational programs to our kids. We cannot suspend the special education, the Head Start program, or the K-12 program,” she said.

Board fiscal and personnel affairs committee chair Tanya King told Saipan Tribune that the $40 million proposed budget for next fiscal year is the amount needed so that PSS will be able to retain its personnel in fiscal year 2013. Some $4 million of the proposed budget is just for utilities. She hinted that failure to receive the proposed amount may result in shutting down some schools, an option that she said the board is not willing to consider.