By Sen Judi Guthertz
For Variety

DON’T hold your breath waiting for the management audit of the Guam Public School System because it’s not going to happen anytime soon. The Guam Education Policy Board has taken some time to finally recognize the need for such an audit, and it will be months before it is contracted, conducted, assembled and released.
I’m not going to hold my breath; I’m going to move forward. I’ve been to many of our public schools and talked with teachers, administrators, staff members and board members. I’ve even served as a member of the board several times. Most of the problems within our public school system have outlasted a dozen directors and hundreds of administrators, and I believe we should start moving to correct them as soon as we can.
I’m hoping that the audit will be thorough and uncover every bit of minutiae concerning what’s wrong with public education, and I’m looking forward to seeing the final product. But since we already know what is wrong in some areas, we should get a head start on fixing things. My office has begun a review of the financial and governance challenges of the GEPB and GPSS and I have a preliminary list of recommendations, including the following:
GEPB operations:
• Revising the current education laws in Title 17 Guam Code Annotated to clarify and strengthen the GEPB authority;
• Updating the GPSS/GEPB Policy Manual to reflect current law and board policy actions, and making the revised manual available on-line so the community would have access;
• Allowing the GEPB to retain its own legal counsel because of the inherent conflict with the GPSS attorney; and
• Completing the required training process for each GEPB member.
GPSS finances:
• An audit of all of the financial processes at GPSS;
• Mount an effort to correct all financial audit findings, questioned costs and recommendations as quickly as possible;
• Continue the effort to remove GPSS’ high-risk grantee status as quickly as possible;
• Ensure that GPSS and GEPB are in full compliance with all local and federal laws, rules and regulations (this coincides with updating the Policy Manual mentioned above);
• Conduct a complete analysis of the GPSS financial management system and processes, to include hardware, software, and effectiveness/efficiency issues;
• Prepare and ensure implementation of a cost reduction plan to ensure that only essential expenses are incurred and prioritize payments;
• Consider removing the funding of GPSS from the general fund and give the GEPB the responsibility to administer its own funds. This would require petitioning Congress for an amendment to the Organic Act, and designating a dedicated source or sources of revenue for GEPB independent of the control of the governor; and
• Ensure the swift implementation of the professional management audit as required by public law.
The management structure of our public schools should be changed to have a trained business manager run the financial side of each school, while the principal takes care of education. Performance-based contracts for principals and business managers should be put into place, but performance cannot be based solely on test scores.
Of course, this is a flexible list that has been taken from a work in progress. I have recruited Dr. Carmen Fernandez, an educator with experience in both finances and the Legislature, to prepare a full report and to draft legislation to make some of these needed changes. When Dr. Fernandez submits her final report in the next month or so, I expect to introduce legislation based on her findings and recommendations.
I’m looking forward to improving our public schools from top to bottom.