Finance: We have money but…

The Department of Finance maintained that the government collected more during the first quarter of the year despite reports about the government not remitting funds to the Public School System on time.

“Yes, we collected more but if you collect more it doesn’t mean you’d have less expense. There are many things we have no control over,” said Finance Secretary Fermin Atalig.

Among the unforeseeable expenses, he said, are settlements against the government, litigation costs, medical referral costs, storm recovery efforts, and the like.

As for PSS’ fear about “payless paydays,” Atalig said this would never happen, citing that Finance has never failed to give PSS its payroll money. He admitted that Finance has been delayed in giving PSS its funding under the All Others account but payroll money is always released.

He refuted earlier claims that PSS did not receive its payroll funds for pay period 25 and 26 in December 2004.

“That’s not true. We’re giving them in increments,” he said.

He said he understood that Finance gave PSS some $700,000 during the first week of December, and about the same amount about the third week of December.

Early this month, education officials held urgent meetings with the governor, expressing great alarm over their lack of funding. Education officials had warned of public school shutdown and possible payless paydays.

When reached, education deputy commissioner for administration David Borja agreed that some funds were remitted last month but he noted that Finance merely gave the net amount.

“It’s correct but what they gave us was the net pay, not the entire payroll. The total payroll includes the contribution for retirement, the taxes, the contribution for health so those didn’t come, but only the net that goes to the person’s paycheck,” said Borja.

Further, he said that those net pays came about a week late for each payday.

Borja said the PSS’ payroll each pay period totals $1.3 million.

Meantime, Atalig said that it was not the first time for the government to be late in giving out funds.

“There were other times when the government was late for All Others but for personnel, for payroll, the treasurer makes sure with the bank that employees get their salary,” he said.

He said that if checks are not funded, the government requests the bank to process payroll checks.

The Finance chief noted that when PSS needed financial help with funding when it was under federal high-risk status, it turned to the local government for aid.

He said that Finance had allowed PSS to shift federally paid employees to local account.

“It drained local funds and we didn’t say anything about that,” he said.

He noted that contrary to what may have been implied, “we’re not neglecting PSS or all agencies for that matter.”

Borja, meantime, said that the high-risk grantee status was about the submission of audit reports, not necessarily about any funding mess.

On the suggestion that PSS make use of its federal funds in case of local fund shortage, Borja said this will only put the system in a worse situation.

“It’s worse than high-risk status. We can’t use federal funds for other purposes other than what’s specified in the guidelines,” he said.

Meantime, Borja said that all obligations covering pay period 25 and 26 as well as pay period 1 and 2 have been settled by recent infusion of local funds. The PSS received $1.9 million early this month and $1.3 million last week. PSS still hopes to receive additional funds before the end of the month.

As of now, Borja said, PSS needs a total of $1.4 million for payroll and vendor payment.

PSS operates on a $37.2 million continuing resolution.