By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

As he leaves office, Sen. Bob Klitzkie is leaving behind a legacy of using public funds wisely, saving more than half a million dollars in taxpayers money during his stint at the Legislature.
For the 27th and 28th Guam Legislatures, Klitzkie, R-Yigo, saved some $525,000 in taxpayers money, spending only about 39.50 percent of its budget.
“Before I was a senator, I always wondered what they were doing with our money and their time. When I became a senator, I vowed to report on how I spent your money and how I used my time,” Klitzkie said in his office’s final report.
The savings were realized through the avoidance of unnecessary expenses.
Klitzkie’s office rent, for instance, was only $664 per month. But this had no impact on the office’s productivity as it was open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the week and most Saturday afternoons.
“During the 27th Guam Legislature, when I was in the minority, I was the lowest spending legislator. In the 28th Guam Legislature, when I was in the majority, with two committees (one very labor intensive), I again spent the least, saving more than 60 percent of my office budget,” Klitzkie said in the report.
He added that taxpayers money should be spent on priorities, like education, not his office, which had many productivity tools but few comforts.
“You paid me to do a job, not gather perks unto myself. Bob’s Office was a great place to work but a terrible place to sit around and gab. You saw computers (for our paperless office, which meant no expensive photocopy machine leases) to do work, but no sofas with soft cushions to relax on. No kitchen. No ‘private offices’ in which to have ‘private conversations.’ No big, expensive conference room to show off, nor big, expensive senator’s office. The furniture (what little of it there was) was GovGuam property transferred from the Guam Legislature,” Klitzkie said.
In addition, no additional furniture was bought with government funds and Klitzkie’s office itself only had an old 5-drawer government desk that had to be raised three inches with wooden blocks.
In his four years in the Legislature, Klitzkie also never traveled off-island using taxpayers money. Moreover, no amount of money was spent on office janitorial services as Klitzkie and his wife were the ones who cleaned the office.
The senator also has an enviable attendance record, having attended nearly all of the public hearings and roundtables held by the other committees over the last four years.
This is proven in the legislative record, which shows that Klitzkie voted 312 times on the session floor for the public laws passed in the 27th (160 votes) and 28th (152 votes) Guam Legislatures.
Despite his austerity, Klitzkie nonetheless was responsible for the passage of many important laws including the following:
• The “Every Child is Entitled to an Adequate Public Education Act” which makes education the top priority of the government and holds government officials accountable;
• The “Priorities in Government Act” that places education, health and public safety as priorities, and allows the governor to reorganize the government and privatize functions;
• The “Teacher Appreciation Act” that provides teachers a tax rebate up to $500;
• The “Judicial Efficiency Act of 2006” that allowed the Unified Judicial Council to create internal rules to increase the efficiency of the services provided by the Guam Court and adjust compensation in reference to those rules; and
• The “Personnel Management Modernization Act of 2006,” which assisted autonomous agencies and public corporations in above step recruitment and position creation and increased efficiency and transparency in the government of Guam’s personnel management system.