By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

VICE Speaker Eddie B. Calvo, R-Maite, yesterday asked Gov. Felix P. Camacho to submit a revised budget proposal that includes the administration’s deficit elimination and fiscal recovery plans, which the governor outlined in his State of the Island Address Monday.
The governor told senators Monday that he wanted his revenue enhancement and expenditure cutting initiatives incorporated into the 2008 budget, but Calvo noted that the budget plan submitted to the Legislature did not contain any of the proposed measures.
The governor said he will sign in the next couple of days an executive order detailing his fiscal reform program, which includes a hiring freeze, government travel restrictions, a 50 percent reduction in overtime pay, cash infusion, bond borrowing, and the creation of the Economic Recovery Task Force.
“Based on your commitment to include these initiatives in the 2008 budget, I am anticipating a revised fiscal year 2008 executive budget which incorporates the provisions you alluded to in your State of the Island Address,” Calvo stated in a letter to Camacho.
Calvo, chairman of the finance, taxation, commerce and economic development committee, said the governor’s State of Island Address was “very short and lacking in the details that I anticipated.”
 “The governor said he will submit his plan to the Legislature soon. I want to see a new budget plan that incorporates the message and policy that he mentioned in his State of the Island Address. We want to see the accompanying language,” Calvo told Variety.
The governor on Monday acknowledged that the “financial state of the government of Guam is bleak,” with a deficit likely to balloon to $700 million in the next five years. He attributed the government’s fiscal crisis partly to what he considers inadequate fiscal power and thus asked the Legislature to give him more cash management control specifically over the Guam Public School System.
“I don’t know if the takeover of GPSS is the right direction for us to take. It is the law of the island. GPSS is an autonomous agency that has policies guided by the Legislature,” Calvo said.
He, however, acknowledged the problems caused by the lack of coordination and information exchanges between GPSS and the administration, resulting in conflicting statements on the true financial state of the education agency.  
“It is important to have a dialog between the governor’s office, the education board and the Legislature,” Calvo said.
The finance committee chairman urged the administration and GPSS to synchronize their accounting systems and records using their upgraded online technology.
“They don’t speak the same language. They have no connections to each other. As a result, the GPSS figures are different from the numbers coming from the administration. GPSS should put its system in line with the rest of the government of Guam’s accounting system,” Calvo said.
Administration officials claim GPSS has been collecting cash amounts that exceed the budget law’s allotment. Education officials turn the tables, saying the administration has not been prompt in releasing the funds to the agency.