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PSS opposes Senate budget plan
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Posted on Nov 03 2008
Education officials have opposed the Senate-passed budget for fiscal year 2009, which proposes $2 million less than the budget approved by the House of Representatives for the Public School System.
The House version of the FY2009 budget provides the PSS with $30.2 million for personnel and $8 million for operations, for a total of $38.2 million. The Senate-approved budget cuts the budget for PSS to $36.3 million.
“[T]he PSS supports the House version of the FY09 budget bill, HB 16-169, and does not support the Senate passed substitute bill,” Board of Education chairwoman Lucia L. Blanco-Maratita and Education Commissioner Rita A. Sablan said in a joint letter to the legislative leaders.
Blanco-Maratita and Sablan said their objections to the Senate’s proposal go beyond the budget reduction. They also oppose provisions that would “adversely affect teaching and learning.” They cited as examples the austerity holidays, unpaid legal holidays, hiring freeze, and the conversion of all non-managerial PSS staff to civil service status.
The two noted that the Senate’s budget bill, if enacted into law, would prevent the PSS from hiring any teachers and related service personnel. PSS recruits 45 to 60 new teachers and related educational support service personnel each year.
“Further, this bill hinders the Board of Education’s constitutional mandate to provide free compulsory public education to the 10,913 children attending our public schools as these children require teachers who cannot be hired if these is a freeze on hiring,” they said.
The House of Representatives has rejected the Senate-passed version of the fiscal year 2009 budget. A conference committee made up of Senate and House members has been formed to reconcile the differences between both houses.
