by Nick Delgado

Guam - The Department of Education may be in the clear from having its federally-funded projects go through a lengthy procurement process with the Attorney General's Office, however DOE Deputy Superintendent of Finance Taling Taitano says that may soon change for some projects.

Taitano says she has learned Adelup has proposed moving federal project funding under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund towards the agency's personnel cost. She says they have to expend the $75 million under the Fund by the end of the year. The good news, she says, is that reallocating the money would alleviate the strict timeline; however, she admits they would have to revert to following local procurement review laws in order to spend that money.

Said Taitano, "My understanding and this is something the Governor's Office is working with Senator (Ben) Pangelinan's office. What would need to happen is we put the revision application in place and USDOE is going to require a dollar-for-dollar replacement. If we are going to take a dollar out of SFSF to spend on personnel cost, then we need to appropriate that same dollar out of local funds."