PSS staff gets owed salaries

Over 800 Public School System teachers and personnel received their salaries for pay period 8 after receiving over $1 million from the CNMI government

According to Education Commissioner Dr. Alfred Ada, over 800 locally funded teachers and personnel were paid 80 hours for pay period 8 yesterday afternoon. Pay period 8 was the first full missed payroll after the government shut down as a result of COVID-19.

“It was really a prayer answered and it couldn’t have come at a better time because it’s Teacher’s Appreciation Week and Mother’s Day,” Ada said.

Ada explained that PSS still owes its locally funded employees two pay periods, 9 and 10. However, PSS is expecting to pay off this remaining amount once it receives the money allotted to PSS under the CARES Act.

“For pay period 8, 9, and 10, [employees] were not paid. For pay period 8, they were given 80 hours of pay, for pay period 9, they worked 72 hours, and for pay period 10, they worked 16 hours. The money we received from the government was only enough to cover pay period 8 but the Education Stabilization Fund that we are expected to receive will cover pay period 9 and 10,” Ada said.

Ada thanked Gov. Ralph DLG Torres for his help and for finding a way to pay PSS employees even if it was for just one payroll.

“The governor was really stuck with the funding because he had to put all the money the government had toward combating the spread of COVID-19 like quarantine and all of that. That required a lot of money. That’s all been taken care of and…he was able to gather as much of the government’s leftover money…and transfer funds to help us. He knew he was going to allocate money to pay teachers but it was just a matter of time,” Ada said. “He really is helping and supporting public education. He never lost sight of that, he knew it, it was just a matter of time and collections.”

Finance Secretary David DLG Atalig said yesterday that $1.3 million was transferred to the Public School System on Wednesday to cover the last two pay periods.

Atalig added that the administration remains willing to work with all members of the Board of Education on solutions moving forward as agreed to last January before the pandemic.

“We continue to work with [Board of Education] chair Janice Tenorio and vice chair Herman Atalig on ways to keep PSS funded appropriately. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the world hard, especially here in the Marianas where our budget is at an unprecedented low level that has affected every employee and every agency. Working together is what will get us through this,” said Atalig.

Despite the shortage of funds, Torres said he worked with the Department of Finance to leverage existing local resources to cover PSS salaries. “I know it has been very difficult with our overall CNMI budget shortfall because of COVID-19, but I have been working with [Atalig] on a transfer of funds to pay for PSS salaries as best we can, especially for our teachers. Despite the ongoing disagreements with certain members on the Board of Education, we recently transferred $500,000 to cover the remaining 30% of pay period 8 and $1.3 million to cover their last two pay periods,” said Torres.

Torres assured that he and Lt. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios continue to keep PSS, especially teachers, in their thoughts. “While the disagreements with the Board of Education have been contentious about funding PSS at a time when our overall budget has drastically gone down, Lt. Gov. Palacios and I have always thought about our teachers. We never made the disagreements about them. This is about curtailing administrative and operational costs within the central PSS administration and working together on ensuring a viable funding stream in the long run,” said Torres.