Guam – “When it rains it pours,” said Guahan Academy Charter School administrator Judi Won Pat, who reacted to the recent Office of Public Accountability report regarding the school’s failing finances.
The outlook painted by the OPA’s audit of GACS’ finances and their capability to maintain operations has received a response from Won Pat on NewsTalk K57’s Morning’s with Patti, particularly relative to the report’s concern on the charter school’s liabilities overshadowing its assets.
According to the report, GACS owes vendors $2.9 million. Won Pat said the Guam Department of Education were not validating their requests.
“When it went through DOE, they were not validating some of those request for invoices to pay and when they don’t, of course, validate, it makes it difficult for us to pay, hence of course the debt that you see,” Won Pat said.
“‘Of course, there’s gonna be those out there that want to bring us down, would love to see us fail… but you know the resources, the financial resources are to support the instructional side of the school,” she said.
Won Pat said an audit is supposed to bring deficiencies to the forefront so it could be corrected. She also highlighted the clean unmodified opinion made by the OPA, as she focuses on the light at the end of the tunnel.
“What’s done is done and I think we have atoned for, you know, those sins of the past,” she said adding, “But it definitely should not be rather for them to now hang this over our head and threaten us to close our school because of that. Because of everything else that is going on.”
Moving past the results of the charter school’s audit remains the administrator’s focus. Won Pat said they are starting with a self-study. If done right, this process may just lead the charter school to accreditation, according to Won Pat.
