Teachers are being reassured by both their union and the Government of St. Maarten that vacation allowance will be paid out this year, despite the serious financial problems facing the island. As a matter of fact, when the Island Government needed financial assistance from the Central Government to be able to pay salaries and bills at the end of last year, it insisted on allowing the vacation pay to be resumed, since it had already been promised.
Instead, the Executive Council agreed to make cuts in the education budget as well as personnel cost.
Apart from cutting the study financing budget, the public has since been told that new ways had been found to come up with savings and increase revenues, so that no direct cuts in the number of employees or their benefits would be needed.
What exactly these "alternatives" are and how much they will either save or produce in additional revenues for government remains unclear. There are plans for several types of levies, but so far, three and a half months into the year, few decisions appear to have been made.
Meanwhile, the island has been without the extra four million guilders in marketing funds made available through a federal bond issue on behalf of St. Maarten for months, because government's debt at the bank was too big. Now comes a government press release stating that Nagico purchased the bonds that the bank was said to have been holding.
The good news is that the money is finally available. The bad news is the continued lack of clarity on government's true financial situation and, more important, how to tackle it, not just from government, but from all political parties participating in the May 23 Island Council elections.
A protocol has been signed for a financial bailout, commitments have been made. The public has a right to know how they will be kept and what it will mean to the taxpayer's wallet.
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