Palacios, R-Saipan, said he forwarded to OPA the letter of a concerned citizen informing him that one private school has been receiving a “huge amount” of ETC donation but is not actually serving a lot of students.
Unlike other schools, this institution provides very limited class schedules to its more than 100 students, Palacios said.
He did not disclose the name of the school.
The amount of ETC received by this school, Palacios added, remains unaccounted for.
This abuse, he said, is one of the reasons why the Legislature passed the bill suspending the ETC program which allows those who make donations to schools to deduct the amount from the taxes they have to pay the government.
Palacios said there are “lots of things” that should be fixed in the program. He did not elaborate.
He reiterated that they passed S.B. 17-68, which is now on the desk of the governor, because they want to make sure that the money donated through the program “goes directly to students.”
He noted that private schools, which have fewer number of students get “huge amounts” of ETC donations, while public schools that are usually “crowded” get less.
Many business owners give ETC donations to the schools that their children are attending, he added.
Supporters of the program, however, said allowing private schools to receive ETC donations help prevent tuition fee hikes in these institutions. Such rate increases, they added, would force parents to transfer their children to public schools which are no longer adequately funded by the cash-strapped government.
