A tense exchange during a meeting with education officials regarding the Guam Department of Education’s apparent return of over $26 million in unused federal grant funds.

“As chair, I am not about to go to the legislature and tell them that we’re 37 million dollars short from our fiscal year budget, when we are returning money back simply because we didn’t use it,” said Guam Education Board Chair, Angel Sablan.

But GDOE Superintendent Dr. Kenneth Swanson told KUAM the agency never returned the funds. In fact, he said GDOE never had them.

The funds were, however, authorized.

“And the point is–we didn’t take advantage of it,” said Swanson. “But why? And in all of those cases, all of those answers are different and I’m working with finance people to sort that out.”

Dr. Swanson offered more context about the grants in question.

“It was authorized–but we’re talking about several different grants in the organization three years ago. Fiscal year 21 and 22. 23 is still open, and we’re working on that, and it was in different parts of our budget. Consolidated grants, special education, and the Department of Agriculture. So, it’s not like the ARP situation at all,” said Swanson.

He explains much of the confusion stems from when Guam DOE separated from its third-party fiduciary agent, and they closed their books.

“The documentation we needed was in their data system, which they did not transfer to us, that we needed to be able to claim the money. So, there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done,” added Swanson.

Meanwhile, Education Oversight Chair Senator Vince Borja called for a roundtable discussion to get to the bottom of it earlier this week.

“I personally can’t explain what happened. We’re trying to fly a plane looking in the rearview mirror, and that’s not really how you’re going to get where you’re trying to go. My objective is to close out the books, manage our funds we have well now, so we don’t ever not claim the money,” said Swanson.