By Sen. Judi Guthertz
For Variety

WHEN a former senator proposed an amendment to the bill that would eventually become Public Law 28-68, the Fiscal Year 2006 budget for the Government of Guam, some of his colleagues, especially those in the minority, had no idea what was coming.
Some people knew about it, however. An editorial in one of Guam’s newspapers (not the Variety) ran details on the amendment on the day it was proposed. No bill had been introduced on the subject, and no public hearing held on the subject, either. Other than the newspaper and a few of his majority colleagues, this former senator had kept his amendment under wraps.
The amendments he proposed, which most of his majority colleagues fully supported, split the Civil Service Commission in half. The Department of Administration became responsible for auditing pay equity, creating positions, determining qualifications, applicant rating and testing, detailing of employees, and reviewing those actions in the various departments of GovGuam to assure compliance with existing laws. The amendment weakened an important agency in our government.
This lack of independent review of hiring and employment complaints creates the potential of conflicts of interest and allows for the possibility of reverting to abusive or politically motivated employment practices within the executive branch of our government. This kind of abuse is the very reason that the United States Congress wrote into the Organic Act of Guam the authority for GovGuam to enact a merit system for government employees.
A merit system in any government makes sense. The checks and balances built into our framework of government wasn’t dreamed up overnight, it’s taken hundreds of years to get the processes to where they work as well as they can in government.
It’s only logical that the winner of an election should be able to appoint the members of his staff as well as those with whom he works most closely. It also makes sense that most of the government employees who handle the day to day tasks of providing public services and keeping the government’s wheels turning should be those who have the proper skills and who have some kind of job protection so that the government continues to function when administrations change.
Without strict and specific rules in place, all government jobs would go to the victors of elections. In Guam, as in most U.S. jurisdictions, the political appointees of all three branches of government are a small percentage of the total GovGuam workforce. Only a few hundred people hold what is called an unclassified position. The vast majority, over 95 percent, are classified employees who are protected from political pressures by a merit system.
There was outrage from some of the senators over the passage of the amendment to dilute the authority of the CSC, because protections for classified GovGuam employees were being threatened. Republican Senator Jesse Lujan introduced Bill 203 to reverse the action taken by his fellow majority senators. All six in the Democratic minority, Senators Aguon, Cruz, Leon Guerrero, Palacios, Respicio and WonPat, introduced Bill 204 to do the same thing, reverse the splitting of the CSC’s responsibilities. Unfortunately, only one of the bills was publicly heard, and neither were acted upon.
That was a year ago. This week, I’m introducing a bill to hopefully reverse some of the changes that were made without consultation with the CSC, DOA, or even with those most affected, GovGuam workers. P.L. 28-68 brought to a halt over 40 years of progress in implementing a merit system for government employees. I hope my bill will successfully restore some of CSC’s authority and protect our workers.