Worst-case scenario: PSS may impose work-hour cuts

If the Public School System fails to receive badly needed funding from the central government this fiscal year, it will be forced to impose across-the-board work-hour cuts among its personnel, according to Education Commissioner Rita A. Sablan yesterday.

The proposal, which was presented by the financial management team to the Board of Education’s fiscal and personnel committee, was described by Sablan as among the worst-case scenarios that the leadership team has been working on to survive until the end of the fiscal year in September.

PSS was allocated a $30-million budget this fiscal year, a large chunk of which pays for personnel costs. According to Sablan, PSS has over 900 personnel on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota whose salaries are being paid using local appropriation.

At the same time, Sablan said that PSS has $11 million in maintenance-of-effort funding that it has yet to get from the central government in the last two fiscal years.

The federal government awarded PSS the state fiscal stabilization fund in fiscal year 2009 and among the requirements is the MOE funding. PSS was supposed to get over $6 million in MOE funds in fiscal year 2010 and over $4 million in fiscal year 2011, as calculated by the U.S. Department of Education.

Sablan vowed to sustain talks with the Executive Branch about these receivables to avert any work-hour cuts among school employees.

“We’re trying to recover these receivables because these are really part of the MOE for fiscal years 2010 and 2011 and we would like to receive them within the year to avoid any kind of personnel hour reduction,” she said yesterday.

Sablan said the unremitted MOE has been on the discussion table since two years ago, but nothing has been done to address this.

“I hope they [Executive Branch] can make this a priority now because there is a consequence that comes after this,” she said.

Sablan recently ordered an across-the-board energy conservation policy that limits the use of air-conditioning units from between 10am to 3pm each day. At the elementary level, aircon units will only be on from 10am to 2pm.

Sablan said that PSS has noted a 33-percent savings from this energy conservation measure and is optimistic that they will achieve the 45-percent target savings rate by the summer period from June to August.

Despite the expected savings, Sablan said these measures are not enough to meet all their financial needs. PSS has nearly 11,000 students.