by Krystal Paco

Guam - The Guam Department of Education can breathe a sigh of relief as its federal counterpart has extended a waiver for the tiding period. The tiding period, or the period of time allotted to spend grant money, will apply to the local DOE's 2009 consolidated grant and stimulus money. These monies were supposed to be spent by September 30.

DOE interim superintendent Taling Taitano told KUAM News, "What this waiver does is allow us to have some breathing room. We're actually in the process of making sure we have all the incumbencies in place, this allows us to take a breath to take a look at our procurements that are in place and make sure we're targeting our spending in the right areas."

The waiver extends the tiding period up to one year. Taitano says she's relieved to be able to take a step back to re-evaluate DOE's expenditures.