120 Adelup employees received $419,655.19 lump sum payout around Christmas

It turns out, it was more than five Adelup staffers who resigned at the end of Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero’s first term and were rehired a day later into her second term in office.

A lot more.

According to information released by the governor’s office today, 120 Adelup staffers were paid a total $419,655.19 in what’s known in GovGuam as ‘lump-sum’ payouts around last Christmas. The lump sums, most of which are in the thousands a piece, range from as little as $47.10 to the highest payout of $11,874.10. That payment was made to governor’s chief of staff Jon Junior Calvo.

A lump sum payment in GovGuam is the payout an executive branch employee is entitled to from taxpayers, when that employee resigns or is otherwise separated from government service; even if it’s just for one day. Every GovGuam employee accrues a certain number of annual leave (vacation) hours every two weeks. Upon separation from the government, an employee is entitled to cash out up to 320 of those unused hours. The payment is calculated at rate of pay by number of unused hours. For example, an employee whose rate of pay is $10 an hour and has 350 unused leave hours will be paid a gross lump sum of $3,200. The remaining 30 hours that were not cashed out (because the cap is 320), will remain in that employee’s human resources personnel jacket, in case the separated employee returns to government service.

Whenever there is a change over in the governor’s office, the Adelup staff normally is switched out near its entirety, as every new governor has the authority to hire his or her own staff. The outgoing governor’s staff resigns at the end of his term, and each of those staffers receives a lump sum payment. Ms. Leon Guerrero’s political tenure as governor is much like the previous four governors – Eddie Calvo, Felix Camacho, Carl Gutierrez, and Joseph Ada – in that all of them were re-elected and served two terms.

But unlike her four back-to-back double-term predecessors, Ms. Leon Guerrero had her staff resign at the end of the first term, then by-and-large rehired them into her second term the day after their resignation, giving her employees two opportunities to cash out unused annual leave hours. In essence, by the end of Ms. Leon Guerrero’s eight years in office, her staff would be paid two lump sums, or double what her predecessors allowed their staffs to take from the taxpayers.

And with already five personnel documents that have surfaced that have shown five staffers were rehired at higher rates of pay, the next lump sum payment may be markedly higher than the previous Christmas-type bonus.

You may view the list of the 120 Adelup staffers who received lump sum payments this past Christmas season, and the corresponding amounts the taxpayers paid to them below: