By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

THE Senate will hold a session on May 31 and may consider House Bill 15-265 which seeks to implement a 15.6 percent across-the-board budget cut in the fiscal year 2007 budget of $193.5 million while allowing Gov. Benigno R. Fitial to reprogram up to $6 million to the Public School System.
On May 17, Board of Education Chairman Roman C. Benavente and Education Commissioner David M. Borja urged Senate President Joseph M. Mendiola, Covenant-Tinian, to pass the bill.
“Please note that as a result of the $6 million mid-year budget cut, PSS will run out of funds in July and have to lay-off 970 staff for the months of August and September,” the two education officials said.
“This will trigger a mass exodus of highly qualified teachers who have families to support, bills to pay and can go on-line to the teacher websites to secure excellent paying teaching jobs in any of the 50 states and our neighbor island of Guam,” they added.
Under the FY 2007 budget, PSS is allowed to hire 1,116 full-time-employees. The school system’s budget is set at about $38 million, most of which goes to personnel.
“We need this restoration of the $6-million budget cut,” the education officials said. “Otherwise, we will have to recruit staff to resume school operations sometime in late October or early November. The loss of teachers, school administrators and support staff would have a very negative impact on student learning.”