By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

MORE vendors are threatening to cut off service to the Guam Public School System due to non-payment for services rendered.
Xerox Corp., which provides document copying services to GPSS, has expressed its intention to discontinue service unless GPSS comes up with a partial payment on its debt.
J.J. International, which provides custodial services to more than 20 GPSS facilities, has also threatened to walk out if GPSS does not make payment on overdue accounts.
But according to GPSS Superintendent Luis Reyes, GPSS still does not have enough funding to pay off its vendors. Worse, GPSS cannot promise when it could come up with enough money since it has been having difficulties receiving money from the administration.
Last week, GPSS almost had a “payless payday” because the administration wasn’t able to remit the full amount of money needed to cover GPSS employees’ gross pay.
According to Reyes, the Attorney General’s Office warned him that he cannot continue issuing paychecks that only cover GPSS employees’ net pay.
Advance Management Inc., which provides janitorial services to about 13 public schools, earlier suspended its services to GPSS due to non-payment of $124,000 owed by the public school system.
It’s been almost two weeks now since Advance Management suspended its services and it has yet to be paid.
According to Advanced Management president Monty McDowell, the government is endangering the health of the island’s school children by not paying for janitorial services because without janitorial services, the affected schools will become dirty and unsanitary in a matter of days.
Reyes said that GPSS maintenance personnel have already been deployed to the affected schools to conduct janitorial services.
But he said the additional burden of providing janitorial services has overloaded the GPSS maintenance staff, preventing them from doing other important work.
Sen. Judith Guthertz, D-Mangilao, has asked Reyes to provide a listing of all GPSS obligations broken down into the following: vendor name, date each obligation was incurred, amount owed, payment arrangements, information on litigation, interest accruing, and anticipated payment date and source of funds to pay obligation.
According to Guthertz, a listing of all vendor debts and other GPSS obligations is needed to have a better understanding of the public school system’s fiscal issues.