HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The government’s $1.1 billion budget for fiscal year 2024 should have been vetoed, according to the Republican Party of Guam.
Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero on Tuesday announced that she would allow the budget proposed by senators to move forward, but would not sign off on it. Leon Guerrero took issue with the spending of unaudited potential surplus funds in the budget, among other points.
The local GOP in a statement said that allowing the measure to lapse was not an acceptable action.
“If there were issues that the governor had with Bill 26-37 to include appropriations that her own administration warned majority lawmakers throughout the budget process would not be realized over the next 12 months, she should have stepped forward and acted with a veto,” the party stated.
“This lapsed law reflects the majority’s political patronage across all three branches of the government versus a responsible public policy that would serve the greatest number of our island residents – to include our school children and manåmko.”
The fiscal 2024 budget passed at the Legislature in a vote split across party lines, with the nine members of the Democratic caucus voting for it and the six member Republican caucus voting against it.
Democrat lawmakers have come out supporting additional spending provisions in the budget, which will support the school system; the hiring of firefighters and corrections officers; and additional cost of living allowance payments to retirees, among other things.
Republican lawmakers have thrown their support behind waiting for an audit of potential excess government revenue, held over from fiscal year 2022, and putting it toward repairs to the dilapidated Guam Memorial Hospital.
Taxpayers would be the ones to bear the burden of the record $1.1 billion government budget into the future, the Republican Party stated.
“With economic uncertainty and the lack of common sense facing the government of Guam budget process, we needed to chart a different course to protect our island society facing serious problems.”
Merit bonuses
Meanwhile, Republican minority leader Sen. Frank Blas Jr. blasted the governor’s opposition to a mandate in the budget bill that would allow outstanding merit bonuses to be paid to employees who are still awaiting them.
Leon Guerrero in a letter to the speaker noted that agencies were not given additional funding to pay for the bonuses, a holdover from former Gov. Eddie Calvo’s administration, and that lawmakers should put up the money to pay out the bonuses if they wanted to see them paid, she wrote.
“I found it disheartening and disappointing that she continues to refuse to acknowledge and commit to pay merit bonuses to deserving GovGuam employees – some who have retired and passed away – and have earned this pay from as far back as 2010. These individuals were awarded this pay for their exemplary and exceptional work, and to continue to refuse to pay what is statutorily sanctioned is unbelievable,” Blas said in a statement issued Tuesday.
He asserted that information about how much was owed to employees was requested several times, but was not provided.
“The Leon Guerrero-Tenorio administration saw it timely and opportune to give pay raises and incentive bonuses over the last two years to government employees and cabinet members but don’t have the desire, or see the need, to make good on meritorious pay that was earned,” Blas stated.
Sen Frank Blas Jr. asks a question about an amendment during budget hearings Tuesday Aug. 29, 2023 in the Session Hall of the Guam Congress Building in Hagåtña.
