By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

ABOUT $120 million in territorial highway funds are available but remain idle because of the Department of Public Works’ inability to hire qualified engineers to carry out its infrastructure projects, DPW director Larry Perez revealed yesterday.
At yesterday’s budget hearing, Perez said the funds have been available since 1974 but the lack of human resources hampers DPW’s ability to procure contracts and push through with its federally-funded projects.
"Since 1974, we had been spending $50 million a year when we had enough engineers to implement the projects. But now we’re down to two engineers," Perez told the senators during the discussion of the proposed funding cut for DPW.
Surprised to hear Perez’s revelation, Sen. James Espaldon, R-Tamuning, said the sleeping funds could have been generating taxes, hence additional revenues for the cash-strapped government of Guam.
Perez explained that the pending projects require certain skills and expertise.
"We need a qualified civil engineer with a background in federal highway. But when we attempt to recruit for civil engineers, nobody comes forward," Perez said.
The department’s staffing pattern record submitted to the Legislature showed that there are 57 vacant federally-funded positions at DPW’s Division of Engineering, leaving about $2.4 million federal funds unexpended. The unfilled positions include engineers, construction inspectors and program coordinators.
Perez said the department took the initiative to outsource the engineering department to start some of the pending projects as he assured senators that a couple of projects are in the pipeline.
"We are soliciting offers from the Guam Contractors Association for the projects that we have advertised. We are slowly awarding them," Perez said.
Eventually, he said, DPW will carry out more project than GCA can handle.
On top of the vacancies in the federally funded positions, the department has 13 positions for bus drivers, equipment operators and positions for locally funded projects.
From 1,000 employees, the department’s staff is down to 457, Perez said.
Nevertheless, the DPW chief, said the department can still manage with the limited number of school bus drivers without jeopardizing the transportation services for the students.
In a brief interview with Variety before the budget session, Perez said his department can handle the proposed funding cut. "We will be OK. We have been dealing with this for the last four years. There’s nothing new here," he said.