HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Office of the Governor will have its funding for fiscal year 2024 frozen until the Guam Department of Education sees the return of $20 million for repairs that was transferred out to deal with Typhoon Mawar Recovery, should the upcoming government budget act pass as is.
Lawmakers, in a split vote Thursday afternoon, amended the budget act to include the provision, which according to legislative Office of Finance and Budget Director Stephen Guerrero could result in a shut down of the governor’s office.
Adelup in a statement issued Thursday night called the move, led by Speaker Therese Terlaje, “political extortion in a blackmail budget” and a “threat to the democratic foundation of our government.”
Sens. Chris Barnett, Frank Blas jr., Joanne Brown, Chris Duenas, Jesse Lujan, Sabina Perez, Telo Taitague, and the speaker voted in favor of the amendmen -eight votes, short of the 10 needed to override a veto from Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero.
Sens. Will Parkinson, Roy Quinata, Joe San Agustin, Dwayne San Nicolas, and Vice Speaker Tina Muña Barnes did not vote for the amendment, while Sens. Tom Fisher and Amanda Shelton were absent for the vote.
The $20 million appropriation for GDOE’s school maintenance and repair was authorized by lawmakers before Typhoon Mawar struck in May. The money was shifted away by the Bureau of Budget and Management Research after the typhoon, when senators authorized the governor to transfer up to $50 million from any source available to help recover from the disaster. Storm ravaged GDOE has made a number requests for the use of funds, but was still waiting on a majority of them as of this week, just days before the start of the school year.
GDOE leadership has stated they want the money returned, The Guam Daily Post reported this week.
“I realize this is kind of drastic, but I’m hoping it sends the message that give them that money. And we’re sitting on excess funds. I don’t think we need to take it out of Guam Department of Education to take care of Typhoon repair across the government of Guam,” Terlaje told her colleagues, noting that schools were faced with the prospect of coming up short on their utilities payments for the upcoming year if the money was not returned.
Barnett, the oversight chair for GDOE, likewise threw in support for the measure, stating it was “shameful” that “we pass a law that gives the Guam department education $20 million, and then that that $20 million can be taken away like a thief in the night.”
He also said GDOE clearly needed the money, and “while our kids are going into schools that aren’t safe … (Adelup is) sitting pretty pretty over there with $10,000 raises and newly renovated offices.”
‘I don’t get it’
Barnes questioned the move, raising the question of the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government.
“We’re blaming the administration for something the Department of Education has a board … for. I don’t get it. We just had a typhoon, we just had to be able to give, and try and work together. We just talked about respecting each equal branch of government. And now we’re going to do this?” Barnes said.
The vice speaker asked OFB’s Guerrero what the impact of freezing Adelup’s funding would be.
“The way I’m reading it, come October 1, the governor’s office is basically shut down. Because they will not be authorized to spend any money because they’re not allotted no funds,” Guerrero responded.
And a shut down may not help speed the return of GDOE’s $20 million.
“The office closes, you can’t operate. That means you’re never gonna get the money moving,” San Agustin, the body’s chair of its appropriations committee, chimed in.
San Agustin objected to the amendment, stating he couldn’t support a shut down of the executive branch. The senator, a former education board member, pointed to the $287 million in federal funding that GDOE had received for repairs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Take a look at the record of how they spent the money. Did they fix the schools that we are now barking that they need to fix? No. … Everyone’s gonna speak, it’s for the children. But it’s about management, how they manage their money. Now we’re gonna say shut down the governor’s office until they give them their $20 million?”
Brown voted in favor of the move, but cautioned her colleagues about the consequences. She pointed to the situation the 25th Guam Legislature got into with former Gov. Carl Gutierrez. After Gutierrez’s executive budget for fiscal 2000 was severely undercut, he responded by slashing the Legislature’s budget by about $2 million through a line item veto, legislative records show.
‘Bad law’ passed
The Thursday night statement from the governor’s office stated lawmakers chose “hypocrisy over hard work,” and asserted Leon Guerrero was acting in accordance with spending authorization laid out by the Legislature.
“Today, the Legislature was wrong on the facts and wrong on the law—ignoring its own conduct and the separation of powers enshrined in the Organic Act of Guam,” Adelup stated in a release Thursday evening. “Subsequent to the onset of Typhoon Mawar, the Legislature passed an additional law authorizing the Governor to fund $50 million in Typhoon Mawar recovery from any available source.”
Leon Guerrero’s office stated the governor “has continued” to give GDOE access to these funds, even as it has “over $100 million in unspent federal money for school repairs” at its disposal.
“Put simply, the Legislature passed bad law. Now, instead of admitting its error honestly, it is resorting to political extortion in a blackmail budget. This erosion of checks and balances is a threat to the democratic foundation of our government,” Adelup stated.
The office also questions the $1 million increase in the legislature’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which is nearly $2 million more than fiscal 2021.
While the Adelup attributes the increase in budget to Barnett and Terlaje, the provision for the Legislature’s budget was included in the substitute budget bill provided by San Agustin’s committee on appropriations – which neither Barnett nor Terlaje sit on.
In any case, Adelup criticized Terlaje and Barnett for the higher spending.
“The Legislature is seated in a lavish building filled with equipment bought because it is exempt from Guam’s procurement law and carries hundreds of thousands in lapsed funds whose expenses are never accountable to anyone.”
No senator has offered to take money out of their own office’s funds in order to help pay for GDOE, Adelup argued.
Senators and government officials gather for a budget session Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023, at the Guam Congress Building in Hagåtña.
