By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

THE Guam Public School System’s financial problems seem to continue unabated, as GPSS Superintendent Luis S.N. Reyes yesterday said the agency may not be able to meet today’s payroll for its employees.
GPSS has been having problem meeting its full payroll for a number of pay cycles now.
In previous pay periods, GPSS was only able to meet its employees’ net payroll and was not able to pay employee deductions such as insurance payments due to what it claims is non-remittance of funds by the administration.
Yesterday, Reyes warned that GPSS may also not be able to meet its employees’ net payroll today because there is no money for it.
As of press time yesterday, GPSS officials interviewed by Variety said no money has come in and Reyes was still meeting with GPSS finance officers late yesterday afternoon.
According to Reyes, the Attorney General’s Office has issued a warning that GPSS can not continue to go on issuing checks just for net payroll. GPSS was warned that it must make gross or full payroll; otherwise it may be open to legal challenges.
The administration, however, has said that the GPSS employees’ payroll will be met.
According to George Bamba, the governor’s chief of staff, the administration is releasing enough funds for GPSS to meet gross payroll, as has been its practice in the past.
In a sternly worded letter to Reyes, Bamba warned that if GPSS does not pay its employees, Gov. Felix P. Camacho is prepared to exercise his Organic Act authority and order the release of payroll checks.
“The governor has instructed the release of funds to meet your gross payroll requirements for this pay period. However, if you insist on withholding paychecks, the governor is prepared to exercise his Organic authority to order the release of payroll checks for all GPSS teachers and staff,” Bamba said.
According to Bamba, the administration has released millions of dollars more to GPSS than its gross payroll requirements, and yet gross payroll has not been remitted in full.
Because of this, Bamba said the administration continues to question how GPSS is spending the money it receives.
“It appears that while GPSS continues to demand more and more money, it is unwilling to account for the expenditure of the monies it has already received. Still, we have continued to release cash disbursements to meet the your payroll requirements. Yet, GPSS continually fails to meet payroll deduction obligations of its employees,” Bamba said.
“We will not allow the paychecks of GPSS employees to be placed in jeopardy,” he added.