All pending scholarship checks out for disbursement

The long wait for pending scholarship checks from the government would finally end this week following the CNMI Scholarship Office’s announcement that its full budget for fiscal year 2012 was released a few days ago.

“We received the remaining Educational Assistance Program (EAP) Spring 2012 awards this morning to close out FY 2012. That means that all awards for the Spring 2012 semester have been processed and is currently being released to our recipients,” said CNMI Scholarship Office administrator Jackie Che.

The administrator said that once these awards are received and processed on their end, recipients will receive either an e-mail notification or a call from her office informing them of their award.

The budget law appropriated Che’s office $810,000 to be solely used in scholarship awards of off-island recipients for the entire FY 2012. This after the Legislature decided to directly provide Northern Marianas College $1.19 million for its scholars.

In previous fiscal years, the CNMI Scholarship Office was provided a $2-million budget for both its on-island and off-island scholars. On-island scholars are those who are enrolled at the only community college on island—NMC.

For several months, the Department of Finance was delayed in issuing financial assistance to scholars—both from NMI Scholarship and the Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance—due to the government’s cash-flow problem. These delays have been the subject of complaints from parents and students who suffered difficulties in paying for tuition, rentals, and other college-related expenses.

According to Che, the Fall 2011 awards were released to scholars in November 2011 and January and April 2012. All pending checks for Spring 2012, meantime, were released in April and this month.

“As in the past, any funding delay is related directly to limited cash flow and the government’s pending financial obligations. Our funding is derived from the general fund, and as long as we are supported by it, any developments or delays in the financial processes will impact the release of awards,” she said.

Che said the Department of Finance has maintained a steady and consistent response time over the last few months and they will continue to work closely with them and NMC when it comes to processing scholarship awards.

“We remain grateful for their work and to the students who are supported by the program,” added Che.