Honor scholarship awardees facing grant cuts

Recipients of the Honor scholarship grants are facing cuts in their financial awards as a result of the limited budget provided to the NMI Scholarship Office.

Scholarship board chairwoman Lynnette Villagomez confirmed this with the Saipan Tribune, adding that the board is now working on amending the board’s policies and regulations.

At present, the Scholarship board provides up to $1,500 to each honor scholar.

The Scholarship Office received only $3.3 million as its budget this fiscal year. This does not include the 5.5 percent across-the-board cost-cutting measure enforced by the Fitial administration.

About $400,000 of the Scholarship Office’s budget goes to the honor scholarship program each year.

“Yes, we do have plans to make amendments to the regulations and rules…and we are currently working on that. The board has decided to first look and revisit the honor scholarship program,” Villagomez told Saipan Tribune. “We have to look at our budget. Although we are in continuing resolution, there is a reduction of 5 percent. The CNMI Scholarship Office always work within its means and in this case…we need to consider what we have in our budget.”

Although Villagomez assured that they will also consider other programs, the board’s priority is to make the changes in the Honor scholarship.

She declined to comment when asked how much they would cut. “We’re still discussing it.”

Early this year, the Scholarship Office disclosed that its current budget may not able to sustain operations and assistance for all programs and it may consider cutting the financial awards, if the need arises.

Of the office’s $3.3 million budget, only nearly $50,000 is taken out for the wages of two personnel—the administrator and a staffer.

Besides the Honor scholarship, the office is administers the educational assistance program, which has a total of 1,090 recipients receiving $3,960 a year. It has also 10 recipients of the teacher scholarship award, which grants $700 annually.

In an earlier interview with Esther Fleming, special assistant for administration and acting Office of Management and Budget director, she said the scholarship budget is expected to remain on “status quo” until the next fiscal year or until the administration generates enough revenue.