Will professional mold mitigation ever get going at the different public schools? Lawmakers urged the Guam Department of Education to explore different avenues, as procurement to get the project underway is out of GDOE’s control. 

It’s been a year since Typhoon Mawar hit the island, and yet getting mold mitigation underway at public schools is still stuck in procurement limbo. 

Conversations on the seemingly stalled effort continuing during an oversight hearing with GDOE and the Guam Legislature today. GDOE superintendent Dr. Kenneth Swanson said, “How we got here was that the assurance was that the quickest way to get this done was under the D-LAN process when that happened initially after the storm when I was first in office. Obviously, that is not the truth - some people are more important than others.”

GDOE contended that it submitted all specifications and documents needed for the project’s progression to the General Services Agency.  However, Swanson says after the declared emergency ended, it changed the D-LAN ticket priority system. He’s now weighing other options, including asking for the $20 million allocated to GDOE by the legislature back from the governor to take control of procurement from GSA. 

Senator Telo Taitague gave suggestions for the superintendent's next steps forward, saying, “This body intended that money to go to you. So, either you do a press release telling the people of Guam that the governor doesn’t care about our children and is holding hostage your money so you can get the things you need done at the school: mold. Mold, of all things!” 

The republican senator also reminded GDOE of its power to declare a state of emergency to access emergency procurement on its own, utilizing other funding sources. “Is there funding there?" inquired the senator, to which Swanson replied, “I have some federal funding I can re-program.” The policymaker said, "So why aren’t you doing it?” 

Taitague also advised that GDOE can also use its Procurement Division to assist an already-shorthanded GSA, demonstrating, “You have four, five, six people in the program, while GSA only has two. You also need to [knocking on the table] governor, please give us the money that was intended for us. Yeah, that $20 million because I can't open these schools, I can't keep our students safe.” 

For the time being, Swanson says a meeting with the governor on the matter is in the works.