By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

THE law that authorizes salary increases at the Guam Public School System applies only to classroom teachers and school nurses, but administrators “took advantage” of the loophole in the language of the measure and unduly gave themselves pay raises as well, Minority Leader Judi Won Pat, D-Maloloj, said yesterday.
Won Pat, main author of the pay hike measure, said GPSS misinterpreted the law’s provisions when it overlooked the intent of Public Law 28-36.
“When I introduced the bill, my concern had to do with the exodus of teachers. It was focused on teacher recruitment and retention. The idea was to give teachers wages that are competitive with the national average in order to stop the exodus,” Won Pat told Variety.
In compliance with P.L. 28-36, the Civil Service Commission and the Department of Administration conducted a pay study and came up with the recommendation to raise the teachers’ salaries by 14 percent.
“The 14 percent increase was implemented last year and only the salary increases for teachers were included in the budget. Administrators got salary increases too even though they were not part of the budget,” Won Pat said.
She said associate superintendents, principals and assistant principals gave themselves 17 percent pay raise. “They did this on their own. They were not authorized to do that,” Won Pat added.
The minority leader acknowledged a loophole in the language of the law, which provides for the implementation of salary upgrade for “certificated personnel.”
“They said that administrators are ‘certificated personnel,’ too. They decided to take advantage of that language and increased their salaries,” Won Pat said.
She said GPSS has claimed that the implementation of the salary increase cost the agency $90,000, but the Office of the Public Auditor estimated the additional cost to reach about $4 million in one year.
“We give them a lump sum budget. They say they don’t have money for school supplies. So how did they find money for all these pay raises?” Won Pat asked.
The senator said she will ask the Attorney General’s Office to issue a legal opinion on P.L. 28-36. If the AGO upholds the pay raise for “certificated personnel,” Won Pat said, “then there’s nothing we can do to go back.”
However, she added, when the second round of salary evaluation is done after two years, “we will make sure that the increase would apply to teachers only.”
PL 28-36 cites a report by the National Education Association, which found that “while student enrollments are rising rapidly, more than a million veteran teachers are nearing retirement nationwide.”
NEA predicts that the nation will need more than two million new teachers in the next decade, but the recruitment problem has reached crisis proportions.