By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

SENATOR Jesse A. Lujan, R-Tamuning, yesterday proposed the removal of retirement privileges accorded to the governor and the lieutenant governor, saying there should be a uniform retirement policy for everybody working in the government of Guam.
Lujan’s Bill 87, however, would apply only to Gov. Felix P. Camacho and Lt. Gov. Mike Cruz and their future successors. It would not affect the governors and lieutenant governors before them.
Under the current law, governors and lieutenant governors automatically get a lifetime annuity upon completion of their terms. They get a lifetime pension, which is equivalent to half of their annual salary at the time they retire.
“After serving a single term of four years, the governor and the lieutenant governor can just sit on their pension for the rest of their lives,” Lujan said.
“It seems inconsistent that an 84-year-old widow, whose husband devoted 30 years to government service, can’t get retirement benefits because of the government’s inability to pay, while former governors and lieutenant governors don’t have a problem collecting their pensions,” he added.
Bill 87, Lujan said, intends to remove the special retirement privileges and place the governor and the lieutenant governor under the same retirement policy that applies to all government employees.
“This means that the Legislature would no longer make appropriations for the annual pensions of the governor and the lieutenant governor. They would receive their regular retirement benefits from the Retirement Fund based on their contributions and the years that they served in government,” Lujan explained.
“We are on a sinking ship right now. The governor is the captain of the ship. He can’t have the choice seat in the lifeboat. He, too, must put in his time,” he added.
Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks, who has been advocating the elimination of governors’ and lieutenant governors’ lifetime pensions, however, said the language of the bill doesn’t match its intention.
“In its current form, the bill doesn’t address the elimination of the lifetime annuity,” Brooks said.
The single-page bill states that “governors or lieutenant governors who have retired prior to Oct. 1, 2007 following the completion of their terms of office…shall be paid from the Retirement Fund by appropriation made by the Legislature notwithstanding the amount of his contributions thereto and not to exceed 50 percent of the annual salary…at the time he retires.”