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‘Install proper regs before sanctioning and funding NMTI’
The CNMI State Board of Education and Public School System have shared with the House of Representatives their concerns over a bill that would fund and sanction the Northern Marianas Technical Institute as a government body.
House Bill 19-52 amends current law to add the Northern Marianas College and the Northern Marianas Technical Institute as recipients of funds generated from the government’s gross revenue tax, among other purposes.
The board and PSS are concerned that NMTI would be recognized by the Higher Education Commission “before any regulations were in place” that ensured accreditation and other essentials for a school.
“We continue in our concern about the lack of oversight for NMTI as they stand to be made an institution but without first defining what is an institution in the Commonwealth. We continue to urge the Legislature to first create regulations governing the Higher Education Commission and those under its umbrella before sanctioning the NMTI as a higher education institution,” board chair Herman Guerrero and acting education commissioner Glenn Muna wrote in their joint letter.
The board and PSS also noted how the bill would make NMTI a “quasi-agency” of the government.
This would be “problematic,” Guerrero and Muna wrote.
The board and PSS believe, though, that if the Legislature were to fund NMTI, they should fund it as a program and not as a government body.
First, they explained that the bill seeks to fund an institution that does not exist yet in a form necessary to be funded by the Legislature. Even if recognition by the Higher Education Commission is contemplated, “it has not happened yet,” PSS and the board explained.
Second, PSS and the board said that NMTI should not be funded as an agency because there are no rules to date governing its operation or existence.
“It is our firm belief that the Legislature should take a step back and allow the proper rules to be in place before continuing to fund, create, and sanction NMTI. This will ensure that the children of the CNMI are offered the highest caliber of education possible by an institution that is complying with the standards that are appropriately created by Legislature.”
