BOE member frets over future of federal funding

A CNMI State Board of Education member cited the “moods of Congress” in her concern over the Public School System’s growing dependence on federal grants for some of its most essential programs.

Ada

At a board meeting on Tuesday, acting chair Marylou Ada asked if there is any contingency plan in case any programs were eliminated or reduced.

“We have to think in that direction sometimes, because I see that increasingly we’ve been so dependent on federal money. It makes me scared that someday or tomorrow, by a stroke of a pen and by a bill introduced in Congress, one of these programs will disappear, and then what are we supposed to do? Is there a contingency plan in the event any of these federal grants get reduced or eliminated so we don’t jeopardize these programs?” she asked.

Ada directed her question to federal program officer Tim Thornburg, who has been instrumental in growing PSS’ share of federal funds in years past. Thornburg assured Ada by quoting former president Ronald Reagan who said, “Nothing lasts forever in this world except a federal program.”

“My goal always is to grow the federal share,” he added.

Thornburg also cited the recent ballot initiative, HLI 18-12, which increased PSS’ share of local funds.

PSS’ federal grants total a little bit over $35 million, according to Thornburg in his summary report of their 14 federal grants. This rounds out to a total budget of about $62 million from local and federal sources.

Ada, who is also chair of the Fiscal, Personnel, and Administration committee, said she does not want to report to the board that a program has been eliminated, when it may have been “at the heart of students succeeding and going off to college and finding jobs and being independent.”

“I really do not want to have that happen to any of our programs,” she said. “We always have to look seven steps ahead, what if, what if—and answer all those what ifs.”

Thornburg said most of their essential grant programs appear intact after their review of a draft education reauthorization bill made public this month by U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, or HELP.

“We got a copy of Sen. Alexander’s draft. We went over that carefully and Title I [grant] is there, Special Education is there—every one of our major education program…are all there and at a reasonable level of funding. So I think we are going to be good at least for the next five years. That’s as far as we can predict,” he said.

Alexander, a conservative, has been adamant in his push for the education reauthorization in a Republican-led Congress this year. His draft bill, titled “Every Child Ready for College or Career Act of 2015,” is a reintroduction of sorts of a bill he pushed in 2013.

How education reauthorization plays out and how it will affect the students of the CNMI remains to be seen. From the most recent data, federal funds per pupil in the CNMI have jumped from $2,031 in 2003 to $2,875 in 2013.

In comparison, the local contribution per pupil was $3,306 in 2003, averaging a decline over the 10-year period, to $3,116 per pupil in 2013.