It has been more than a month and two weeks since the Guam Department of Education was placed on probation by the U.S. Department of Education on April 1 to remove the third-party fiduciary agent.
Judith Won Pat, the acting superintendent of GDOE, told the Pacific News Center that all has been smooth sailing.
“Actually, it has been going very well,” said Won Pat. “What we are doing of course is following the transition plan and they want to hear from us on a monthly basis on how we are doing.”
GDOE is getting closer to being free from having a third party fiduciary agent.
She provided a progress report.
“We started transferring information from the third-party agent system over to the local system,” Won Pat said. “That is the main progress and transition that is currently happening. So far, so good. We will hear once they get it after this weekend and when they review it they will let us know and share their thoughts of what we should and should not be doing.”
According to GDOE’s finance division, everything’s going as planned based on the transition report, she said.
As PNC previously reported, this removal has been two decades in the making as U.S. DOE classified GDOE a high-risk grantee because of poor management and spending of federal funds in September 2003. This required GDOE to retain services of independent fiduciary agents for grant funding it received.
GDOE’s third-party fiduciary agent has been Alvarez & Marsal Public Sector Services since 2009, which the island’s largest government of Guam agency pays more than $2 million a fiscal year for its services.
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