SHEFA board caps scholarship budget at $1.5M a semester

The Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance program will be giving out only half of the scholarship funds it gets every year as an emergency means to ensure that scholars for both spring and fall semesters will get their checks on time.

The SHEFA board adopted this 50-percent disbursement cap for its yearly appropriation in a meeting last week.

Each fiscal year, the Legislature allocates $3 million for the SHEFA scholarship programs and $100,000 for its operations and personnel. With the board’s decision, SHEFA will now only award $1.5 million in financial assistance to scholars per semester.

“To ensure that disbursement of fall 2011 financial assistance award does not exceed 50 percent of the appropriation and in keeping with the purpose of Saipan Local Law 15-33, it is recommended that the board resolve to set the ceiling for fall 2011 academic term disbursement at not-to-exceed $1.5 million,” said Hofschneider.

It was learned that SHEFA had awarded $2.2 million in financial assistance during the fall 2010 semester alone—already 77 percent of the entire program’s $3 million budget. This resulted in only about $1 million available for spring 2011 scholars.

To date, over $930,000 worth of checks for spring 2011 scholars are still pending at the Finance Department, due to the cash flow problem of the government, which relies on poker fees and related revenues for its scholarship programs.

Meantime, SHEFA acting administrator Teri Camacho disclosed yesterday that SHEFA has so far received a total of 161 applications for the fall 2011 semester, which will begin in August. The number is expected to increase this week prior to the July 1 deadline. Applicants have until Sept. 30 to submit all supporting documents.

The board drastically reduced the financial awards of SHEFA scholars beginning spring 2011 semester—ranging from 25 percent to 50 percent. For the new semester, the board had expressed its intention to implement additional cuts to ensure the continuity of the programs. The anticipated slash in the scholarship assistance is a result of the declining number of poker machines on the islands.

The government has invested a total of $17.7 million in SHEFA programs since its inception in 2004 through 2009.