HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — It will be up to the University of Guam to decide whether an extra $3.6 million provided by the Guam Legislature goes to faculty pay raises or other critical spending areas at the university next fiscal year.
Lawmakers on Monday approved the additional $3.6 million for UOG in the budget bill, which was initially requested to fund raises for faculty who haven’t seen a significant pay adjustment since 1991. But the fiscal 2024 budget act now leaves it to UOG leadership to decide how to spend that money, instead of specifically earmarking it for raises, following an amendment from Speaker Therese Terlaje.
UOG’s proposed budget was $24.5 million short of what the institution asked for in the upcoming fiscal year, to keep with costs as important as utilities and maintenance. Raises were approved by UOG’s board of regents.
Disagreement over the funding source for the extra $3.6 million was largely resolved by Vice Speaker Tina Muña Barnes, who pushed for lawmakers to fund the raises last week. Barnes was eyeing money in the government of Guam’s Rainy Day Fund, which is meant to pay off the government of Guam’s bills or stave off a deficit in the event of a cash shortage.
After fierce debate over the Rainy Day Fund’s usage, Barnes amended her proposal to instead tap into whatever surplus tax revenue is left over once GovGuam’s books from fiscal 2022 are audited.
Sen. Telo Taitague, who led opposition to the pay raises last week, agreed to Barnes’ change, saying, “I have no objections to it.”
Not every lawmaker agreed with providing the extra money to UOG, however.
Sen. Chris Duenas noted that if the money was available and UOG leadership decided to spend it on faculty raises, “this will now be a fixed cost for the University of Guam.”
It would have been better for UOG, which generates its own revenue, to decide to foot the bill for the pay adjustment, he said. With senators approving the funding, “we’ll be talking about this for the next fiscal year appropriation within this august body.”
Sen. Joanne Brown echoed Duenas’ opinion. Though Terlaje’s amendment to the funding would freeze tuition through 2024, the trade-off was not equal, Brown said.
“In exchange for one year here of not raising tuition, we’re going to add another $3.6 million that we’re going to fund the University of Guam to pay these pay raises,” Brown said. “And I don’t argue the importance of it. I think it’s long overdue. … But again, the bigger picture, financially, is what we’re doing is continuing to obligate the taxpayers of Guam to continue to pay raises. That’s the reality, colleagues – let’s not put it in any other package.”
‘If not now, then when?’
Education committee Chairman Sen. Chris Barnett, on the other hand, spoke in support of university faculty getting a pay adjustment.
“We are talking about faculty that have not received a meaningful increase for at least – what I read of the board of regents’ report – for 30 years,” Barnett said.
“And if not now, then when? So, of course, I’d rather see the money go to student services. But again, the University of Guam has the ability to do with (the money) what they will.”
Others, including Republican Minority Leader Frank Blas Jr., took issue with lawmakers putting a tuition freeze in place as a condition of the funding.
“It’s like, ‘Do this before I can give you what I promised you’? I just have to raise that concern,” Blas said.
Sen. Tom Fisher argued that a tuition freeze could cripple the university and said senators were “legislating by threat.”
“‘If we don’t get what we want, we are going to do what we can to cripple you.’ I don’t find that to be a particularly productive or positive or democratic way to work,” Fisher said.
Terlaje, who added the tuition freeze clause into the budget act, objected to Fisher’s statement.
“I think that’s wrong … because we have seen, in the recent past, salary raises at the university and then tuition raises to pay off those salary raises. And what we have been trying to do here in the Legislature is to get people to go to the University of Guam,” Terlaje said, adding that lawmakers subsidized many UOG projects with tax money.
Appropriations committee Chairman Sen. Joe San Agustin chimed in that lawmakers already froze UOG tuition through fiscal 2025 as a condition of UOG getting a 22% general pay raise for its staff.
“Just for a matter of record, did a little check with the clerks,” San Agustin said. “When we did the 22% pay raise there was no objection. And we did restrict the university.”
Sens. Barnett, San Agustin, Taitague, Sabina Perez, Jesse Lujan, Will Parkinson, Roy Quinata, Dwayne San Nicolas and Amanda Shelton and the speaker and vice speaker voted in favor of the $3.6 million for UOG.
Sens. Blas, Brown, Duenas, and Fisher did not.
The University of Guam sign is propped up on the ground at its back entrance in Mangilao on Aug. 8, 2023. On Monday, lawmakers approved granting the university an additional $3.6 million government subsidy to pay for faculty raises and other financial needs.
