Board members made 211 trips in fiscal years 2007 and 2008, which cost federal and local taxpayers $74,184.
“Travel is necessary to conduct the regular and special board meetings to take care of board matters and the many challenges we face, especially in these past two years,” Blanco-Maratita told Variety.
The Tinian resident incurred the highest travel expenditures among the board’s members.
She said in addition to board meetings, committee meetings are also held, requiring her presence.
“The committee is where most of the work of the board takes place and the chair is a member of several committees and chairs a couple of committees,” she said.
According to Blanco-Maratita, additional travel is also needed when the attendance and/or participation of the BOE chairwoman is requested for various functions such as graduations, recognition ceremonies, meetings with various groups, meetings with schools to address several critical issues and some board professional development opportunities.
“We try to share the responsibilities of attending these events when possible but there are times when the chair’s presence is especially requested,” she said.
To minimize the costs, she added, BOE also conducts video-teleconferences.
“But the system still needs improvements,” Blanco-Maratita said.
BOE also wants to use the system for the distance learning program between schools.
Records showed that the board spent $11,286 in local and $62,896 in federal funds on its FYs 2007-2008 travels.
“[Most of] the funds for travel came from the federal [government] as the board did not receive any local funds for operations, including travel,” Blanco-Maratita said. “The federal funds are normally used for board professional development, which allows the board [members] to attend conferences, workshops, and presentations on improving board effectiveness.”
Blanco-Maratita said most of her travels for FY 2008 were due to her new position as BOE chairwoman.
“Since taking on this position, there are more responsibilities involved, such as lobbying for our [Public School System] budget, meeting with members of the Legislature regarding bills relating to our recruitment efforts and special education programs and the selection of [the education commissioner],” she said.
According to Blanco-Maratita, “we try to minimize our travel costs [but travel] is just unavoidable.”
BOE members, she added, are also contributing their time and personal resources to improve public education.
She said the board usually tries to combine all the committee and board meetings in order to be more efficient, and squeeze into the agenda the many issues that the board needs to address.
The travel expenditures incurred by the other members: Vice Chairman Herman T. Guerrero of Saipan, $1,498; Denise Tanya King of Rota, $8,059; Marylou S. Ada of Saipan, $185; Galvin Deleon Guerrero of Saipan, $5,998; former Chairman Roman C. Benavente of Saipan, $7,468; former Rota member Marja Lee Taitano, $16,876; former Saipan member Dino Jones, $4,197; and former student representative Louvele Borja of Tinian, $1,445.
