Elshot said while the teachers of the Government Schools were paid on Friday, the teachers working at the Government subsidized schools did not get the 2% cost of living allowance on their salaries. The President of the Teachers Union said the Minister of Finance promised her that he will rectify the mistake when she met with him on Friday.
The only school that is yet to pay its teachers is the St. Maarten Academy. President of the Academy School board Josianne Fleming Artsen confirmed that she did not pay her teachers simply because the school did not get the cheque from Government until Monday.
While the council of Ministers admitted that mistakes were made and corrected in the payroll system, several police officers told SMN News that they only received half of their salaries while some of their colleagues were not paid. "One of our colleagues received Naf. 127 on his account this month as salary for the month of January, while we understand that this is new to the government of St. Maarten we also believe that St Maarten Government should have kept the same three people who were handling the Federal Government payroll for the police and prison guards. Those old workers could have taught those in the Finance Department how to handle the payroll of the federal government workers that is transferred to St. Maarten."
In the meantime, SMN News has been reliably informed that two persons working in the Finance Department hacked the system so the payroll could have been finalized by Friday. The source said the workers in the Finance department are being blamed for making mistakes but the errors they said came because two persons hacked system. In an invited comment, Minister of Finance Hiro Shigemoto said he is not aware of any hacking. The Minister said this is a transisition period and mistakes were made.