Task force getting action items in order

by Krystal Paco

Guam - The newly created Education Task Force will be meeting in the coming weeks as they intend to do a comprehensive assessment of the island's schools and prioritize the top ten facilities that are in the most need of repair and renovations. And the group has numerous challenges ahead of it.

As the head of a Education Task Force, governor's education liaisons Vince Leon Guerrero has his work cut out for him. "We still need to get information from DOE on what they're needs are," he told KUAM News. "They've never really compiled a comprehensive needs list."

The task force, announced by Governor Eddie Calvo during the State of the Island Address earlier this week, has been tasked to explore how the government can finance the renovation and rebuilding of existing schools and construct new ones.  The creation of the group comes at a time when Adelup has asked the Department of Education for an updated capital improvements plan and called for a district wide assessment of student desks, equipment and supplies.

Leon Guerrero says this all starts with a comprehensive needs assessment of all the schools, noting "I think we want to do a correct and true picture of what the needs of DOE are. And that's going to take some time, so clearly we need DOE's involvement. Now on the financing side, we need GEDA to assist us, because as we explore the ways that we're going to finance this we're going to have to make sure we take into consideration the debt ceiling any of the bond covenants that we need to be aware of so we don't violate any of those restrictions and that GEDA is the appropriate agency to advise on that."

Leon Guerrero says an inventory of all collateral equipment will need to be done to prevent Public Health from issuing demerits during school inspections for unsafe student desks and such. The Task Force will be researching alternative financial options such as the EB-5 Visa Program, which allows foreigners to invest their money in places like Guam in exchange for spending time in the U.S to prevent having to pull from the General Fund.

The group will consist of the Governor's Office, the Guam Economic Development Authority, DOE and some stakeholders. Leon Guerrero says the group will use the Sodexo report as a start, saying, "What Sodexo identified was some $130 million in renovation costs and of that only $60 million is going to be addressed by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. So clearly we need to identify funding for some $77 million more - who knows how much more - for the collateral equipment that would be needed."

While funding looks to be the largest challenge, Leon Guerrero says the group will try to tackle a solution for Untalan Middle School first. "Again, Untalan has not had a structural analysis done and that will guide what we're going to do with Untalan and the cost. And so we want to try to get Untalan for the start of School Year 2013-2014 no later than Christmas Break. Take advantage of that at the very latest. But ideally, it should be that summer before 2014 starts," he shared.