HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — An attempt to give the Guam Department of Education another $10 million in funding for the upcoming school year failed to advance at the Guam Legislature on Wednesday.
Education chairman Sen. Chris Barnett proposed to take $10 million worth of excess tax revenue from this fiscal year and put it toward GDOE’s budget in the upcoming fiscal year, with $500,000 earmarked for the GDOE CHamoru language program. The proposal, made during debate on the fiscal 2024 budget act, didn’t get enough support from lawmakers to move forward.
Officials from GDOE this week said the agency’s budget for fiscal 2024 comes up at least $20 million short of what’s needed to pay for power and water, and potentially up to $30 million short of what’s needed to cover other critical contracts.
Education co-chair Sen. Chris Duenas on Tuesday amended the budget act in the hopes of getting GDOE back the $20 million for repairs that was transferred out of its account by the Bureau of Budget and Management Research for Typhoon Mawar recovery in recent months. Duenas, however, was at odds with Barnett’s move to push another $10 million to schools.
“(GDOE) testified before the body, (it’s) budget is extremely short,” Barnett told lawmakers Wednesday. “And after they pay personnel, they … tell me $10 million is left for operations; and their utilities, last fiscal year, they were $22 million. So I think it all adds up.”
The senator said he had been “harangued and lambasted” by his colleagues because it was uncertain whether the $10 million worth of excess tax revenue would actually materialize by the close of fiscal 2023.
Barnett said lawmakers had been willing to put in other, uncertain language to fund $15 million worth of business subsidies in the Local Employer Assistance Program earlier this year, using an uncertain revenue source. He asked them to remain consistent.
“I think that if we’re willing to close our eyes, to assist the businesses, … maybe then we need to stand up for the public schools and really, once and for all, give this money, because we know this conversation has been the finger-pointing back to the Legislature, that we’re not giving them the tools that they need,” Barnett said.
Duenas shot back about the appropriateness of the $10 million appropriation.
“Empty promises are the worst thing that any legislature can ever do. And the problem here is, even when we talk about this potential, … we would still have to realize that revenue after the end of the fiscal year,” he said.
Duenas said the money will have to wait for the completion of an audit of fiscal 2023 government revenues before it can be paid out.
“When we’re talking about (the Guam) Department of Education, those funds will not be available until possibly June of next year, if the audit makes it in time,” he said. “The entire school year’s done by the time those revenues would even potentially be available.”
Dispute over revenue amount
Speaker Therese Terlaje questioned the opposition to the extra funds, pointing to the fact that excess tax revenue for fiscal 2023 was what lawmakers opted to use when they provided $20 million to GDOE in March.
“I don’t understand the hypocrisy that they want to throw out here right now,” Terlaje said.
The speaker argued there was at least $11 million in excess revenue in GovGuam’s coffers as of Wednesday, enough to cover the costs, based on reports from BBMR. Legislative Office of Finance and Budget Director Stephen Guerrero said the number was closer to $7 million, with $68 million out of the $75 million in excess revenue that GovGuam brought in this year already appropriated.
The disagreement about the numbers led to a heated argument on the floor, with the final amount of available revenue left unresolved.
Only Barnett, Sens. Will Parkinson, Roy Quinata and Joe San Agustin, and Terlaje, were in favor of the measure, and it failed.
Sen. Chris Barnett asks questions during a budget hearing Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023, in the Session Hall of the Guam Congress Building in Hagåtña.