By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE Ministry of Education has implemented a strict timeline for the submission and processing of payments for supply teachers after irregularities led to scores of teachers going unpaid for months, according to Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald.

Mr Fitzgerald spoke to the pay dispute, first reported by The Tribune last week, during a press conference at the Ministry of Education yesterday.

He placed the blame for payment delays on untimely submission from principals in the various districts, and havoc wrought by Hurricane Matthew.

“The issue with supply teachers has now been resolved,” he said. “The challenge we have had with supply teachers has been that we cannot pay supply teachers until we have received the requisite information from the various districts around the country.

“In some instances principals have delayed the submission of those supply teacher requests and that has contributed to the delay of them being paid. The second issue, of course, is that we had a hurricane that intervened and that in and of itself caused a delay with regard to processing and the payment of some of those claims.”

Mr Fitzgerald explained that the new policy mandates that all districts submit claims for supply teachers every Thursday. He said his ministry has also been in talks with the Ministry of Finance to solidify a policy position that those claims are processed in a timely manner.

“We really didn’t have a strict timeline on when they (principals) were to submit them (claims) or a set date for submission,” Mr Fitzgerald said. “We just depended on them submitting them really when I guess they had a batch that accumulated.

“So we have mandated that whether it’s two, three, 40, every week we will have those submitted to the ministry and we will process them within that week as well. So that is going to cut down significantly the time.”

Supply teachers are retirees who have mostly been re-engaged by the government because of shortages across the country. Last week The Tribune was first to report that nearly 200 of them had not been paid for months.

In August 2016, Mr Fitzgerald expressed concern over the “unexpected” applications for early retirement from 119 public school teachers ahead of the 2016-2017 academic school year.

Mr Fitzgerald said at the time that the ministry would likely employ some 30 supply teachers to fill vacancies.