By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

THE Guam Public School System, which is constantly in dire straits, must be authorized to identify its own revenue source instead of depending on the general fund to support its operations, according to Sen. Judith Guthertz, D-Mangilao.
“We need to make changes in the way we finance, operate and manage our public school system on Guam in order to ensure that their focus and primary responsibility — teaching and learning — takes place,” Guthertz said in filing Resolution 64.
Under the current system, GPSS receives its annual appropriation from the general fund through legislative action. Education officials, however, complain that delays in the remittances of allotments from the Department of Administration result in payless paydays, nonpayment of utility bills and disruptions of some programs.
“A more financially independent school system for Guam would ensure that board members and administrators would spend less time deciding which bills to pay and which programs to cut and instead focus their attention on providing education for their students,” Resolution 64 states.
The resolution seeks to request Congress to authorize the Guam Legislature “to provide GPSS with a dedicated source of funding for a portion of their total annual budgets that will not require a legislative appropriation or be administered by the governor of Guam.”
Guthertz noted that some school districts in the U.S. are primarily funded by property taxes. Her resolution, however, does not specify a source of funding for the envisioned financially autonomous GPSS.
The resolution instead requests Congress to authorize the local Legislature to establish a system that would allow GPSS to present to Guam voters an initiative proposing a “dedicated revenue source” for the school system.