HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Guam Department of Education budget request for fiscal year 2024 comes to $294.5 million, and anything less than that will cause the department to make sacrifices, according to GDOE officials.
The largest portion of the fiscal 2024 budget request is for personnel, which will cost the department $239.3 million in salaries and benefits for filled and vacant positions. But with the General Pay Plan increase of 22%, that number inflates by an additional $7.9 million.
“School-based positions make up the majority of (the) FY ’24 personnel budget request, with 2,492 positions totaling $209.7 million,” GDOE Superintendent Kenneth Swanson told senators. “The three highest staffing levels continue to be teachers, school aides and school-based administration staff.”
The budget request also covers $22.5 million needed for utilities, although, as Sen. Telo Taitague pointed out, GDOE may need to go back to the drawing board as she believes it did not accurately reflect the rising costs and could leave the department in a bind.
Millions more needed
The budget request does not reflect the millions more GDOE says it needs to address other needs of the public school system.
“What this budget does not fully contain is the funding needed to support the millions needed to renovate the public schools,” Mary Okada, Guam Education Board chairperson, told senators. “However, with (an) infusion of federal money, specifically (the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) and (the American Rescue Plan Act), the department has resources to move the needle in the right direction.”
She cautioned lawmakers that despite having the federal funds, GDOE remains challenged to “execute the needed repairs and construction at all of the schools.”
It’s an issue that has presented itself over the course of many years as a result of successive cash shortfalls in appropriations, according to GDOE.
Swanson reported to senators that from fiscal year 2020 to 2022, GDOE’s cash shortages amounted to $22.1 million.
GDOE says being given less than what they’ve asked for year after year contributed to the baseline funding request GDOE placed before the Legislature on Monday, as opposed to years past when requests came in at roughly $390 million.
According to GDOE, this has contributed to the mounting deferred maintenance and capital improvement projects that have brought public school facilities to where they are today.
Held to the Adequate Education Act and the 14-point mandate, GDOE is faced with many challenges, said Swanson.
“This year we experienced a change in leadership,” he said. “Our schools are currently failing the mandated health inspections, which stems from a lack of preventative maintenance to keep aging school facilities healthful, safe and sanitary. GDOE together with the GEB has developed the FY ’24 budget, which represents the baseline funding level to adequately fund staffing and critical contracts to keep our schools operational.”
‘Completely unacceptable’
During the hearing, Sen. Chris Barnett, chair of the legislative committee on education, asked school officials about the status of $20 million appropriated by the Legislature to aid in post-Typhoon Mawar recovery efforts, which compounded the challenges GDOE faced in getting schools up to par with sanitary codes. But GDOE officials said they have yet to see the money.
“To date, no, we haven’t drawn any of the $20 million,” said Frank Cooper-Nurse, GDOE deputy superintendent of finance and administrative services.
The news didn’t sit well with Sen. Chris Duenas, who said that was “completely unacceptable.”
“The law that was passed by this Legislature recently and the $50 million that was allowed for the governor to use, should not in any way have adjusted any appropriations that this Legislature passed for (the) Department of Education,” Duenas said. “So I am going to encourage you at this point to work with Mr. Cooper-Nurse to write a letter to the administration to comply with the law that is going to require them to give you the allotment of that $20 million. In fact, I am rather upset about that at this point.”
The Guam Daily Post reached out to the governor’s office for comment on the information aired during the budget hearing.
“The Guam Department of Education hasn’t spent the over $100 million it still has,” Krystal Paco-San Agustin, the governor’s director of communications said in response. “The $20 million is not necessary for them to start their work.”
Officials with the Guam Department of Education and the Guam Education Board appear before senators for the department’s fiscal year 2024 budget hearing Monday, July 17, 2023, at the Guam Congress Building in Hagåtña.
