by Krystal Paco

Guam - With less than five months to go, the Department of Education has only committed 10% of its American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funding. DOE received $60 million in stimulus money for capital improvement projects. DOE interim superintendent Taling Taitano confirms that the agency has only committed about $6 million, while much of the rest of the funding is tied up in contracts that are sitting at the governor and Attorney General's Offices, as well as the Public Auditor.

"We continue to move forward to encumber the funds as quickly as possible we're hoping to get much of the work done in the summer," said Taitano, "so until the contracts are in place and the work gets done and then we'll be abler to spend the money."

Taitano adds an invitation for bid was released today for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) projects at George Washington High School and Untalan Middle School as well as smartboards for schools. Taitano hopes to get a bulk of the work done in the summer when students are out of classes.

DOE has until September to spend the stimulus money.