THE governor’s legal counsel says no administration has complied with the requirement that the lifting of salary caps should be approved by the Legislature.
According to Pamela Brown, the current administration has been complying with applicable laws and regulations, but it was only later this year that the other requirements were “imposed.”
“It is a very big problem. This is not a small problem and we are glad that this has all come to light,” she said.
“We are not only talking about five appointees of Gov. Juan N. Babauta,” Brown said. “Every department appears to be part of this. There are medical professionals and some in the judiciary who have exceeded the salary cap and are not complying with P.L. 11-41,” she said. “We also realized that this applies to independent contractors.”
Brown, a former Senate legal counsel, said they could not find any joint resolution adopted by lawmakers that would indicate legislative approval of the previous lifting of salary caps.
“So by not acting, they implied that they were sanctioning. We have to explore that––we are not finished with (our investigation),” Brown said.
The administration is merely following the same steps taken by its predecessors on the salary cap issue, she said.
P.L. 11-41 requires that the lifting of salary caps “shall be first sanctioned by the Legislature before its implementation.” That law is the FY 1999 Budget Act passed in 1998. Since then, the government has failed to enact a new general appropriations measure, and the funding levels of the department and agencies are still based on P.L. 11-41.
Brown said she was investigating government hiring since P.L. 11-41 was enacted.
The investigation will attempt to rectify any problems involving the lifting of the salary cap, she added.
The Office of the Public Auditor earlier said it was investigating all salary increases in the government from 2001 to the present.
Public Auditor Michael S. Sablan was then Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio’s special assistant for finance and budget when P.L. 11-41 was enacted.
