EQUALITY is a beautiful thing when it truly is in practice. But the problem with equality is that those people who enjoy a benefit or privilege desire to hold it unto themselves and are loathe to share it with others.
Senator Jesse Lujan has put forward an important question regarding equality in the form of his new bill: why is it that the governor and lieutenant governor receive lifetime retirement benefits following their terms in office but other long-term GovGuam employees receive nothing?
This is an important question, and one which I am confident the legislature will soon answer in its decision whether or not to pass the bill. It is important for two reasons.
First, in these times of financial hardship, every dollar and cent counts; paying pensions to former governors and lieutenant governors is not a budgetary priority; keeping our schools open and our hospital operational and our workers paid, those are priorities.
Second, it is ethically wrong to offer one person a pension for services rendered to the government and then to deny a pension to another person who has also rendered service.
Bill 87 will remove the mechanism currently in place that provides both the governor and lieutenant governor a lifetime retirement pension that is 50 percent of their full-time salary while in office. Unfortunately, this bill will only impact the current governor and lieutenant governor and their successors; it will not retroactively rescind the pensions already awarded to previous governors and their lieutenants.
However, if this bill pushes through, Senator Lujan will be saving tax payers around $100,000 a year. That is significant! With more creative and thoughtful legislation like Lujan’s Bill 87, our government will be better able to balance and manage the budget and thereby circumvent financial crises like the one we now find ourselves in.
I will expect to see both Governor Camacho and Lieutenant Governor Cruz, as the leaders of our island, strongly endorse this bill and show the people of Guam, whom they serve, that they advocate equality for all GovGuam employees and that they are not exploiting their offices to the detriment of others.

KELLY MARTINEZ
(SSGT U.S. Army Ret.)
Yigo, Guam