by John Davis, KUAM News Thursday, May 08, 2008 Subscribe to John's newsfeed   E-mail this article Printable version KUAM Toolbar Web Widgets Get RSS headlines

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A few weeks ago the Guam Public School System told lawmakers they would have a surplus of $25 million. Today officials were singing a completely different tune, saying that surplus is actually a shortfall.

While the Legislative Committee on Finance & Taxation had hoped to get public testimony on Bill 274, which would transfer GPSS personnel funding lapses to the Department of Public Works for the payment of the government's outstanding streetlight bill, GPSS controller Francis Danielly began discussions with an attempt to defuse the entire situation. "I'd like to ask you to please accept my apologies," he simply stated.

This left the committee to sort out all the mess, with committee chairman Eddie Calvo saying, "Projecting forward, you're seeing this is what appears to be an over expenditure on what their current spending patterns are. To an extent that's where we see a $14 million lapse, they see a $5 million shortfall." The Republican senator said it's obvious that GPSS's numbers just don't add up. He attributes that to the fact the school system doubled up on the actual numbers for pay increments and overestimated figures regarding staffing and recruitment.

And while he attempted to get answers, it was apparent GPSS officials didn't have any. Acting GPSS chief financial officer Wilfred Aflague said, "I can get the back to you by the end of the day."

Because GPSS couldn't justify their reasoning behind the purported $5 million shortfall, Senator Calvo is requesting assistance from the Public Auditor. "I'm going to request that the public auditor do an audit on the Guam Public School System in particular to these cost factors that they have identified, and we'll get to the bottom of this thing," he vowed

Unfortunately, the lack of answers means the legislation that intended to use the excess funding will be placed on the back burner for now, meaning island streetlights will likely be disconnected beginning Monday. "If there is lapses [sic] and there's enough lapses to cover their operational shortfalls and then some, then I want to take that and then some and use it to pay for bills such as the streetlights," said Calvo.

Should the lawmaker be able to convince the rest of his colleagues that GPSS does in fact have money to pay down the streetlight debt, he'll ask for an emergency session to be called to prevent Guam's road's from fading to black.