The public auditor has alerted the attorney general and the public to possible crimes committed by Guam Homeland Security-Office of Civil Defense employees and managers between Fiscal Years 2018 through 2023, following an audit of overtime payments for those years. The amount of overtime some managers were paid during these years were so excessive and unreasonable, that Public Auditor Benjamin Cruz has raised suspicions of fraud within the agency.
Among his Office of Public Accountability’s more damning findings is that the employee whose fingerprints allegedly are on the agency’s failed performance of its federal grants (including massive over expenditure), claimed to have consistently worked overtime for four straight fiscal years in order to fix those federal grants irregularities.
That employee, according to the audit, was paid $775,019 within a six-year period, most of which were overtime payments.
The audit encompasses the final two fiscal years under the Calvo administration, and the first four years of the Leon Guerrero Tenorio administration.
“From FY 2018 to FY 2021, [the employee] was continuously paid large amounts of overtime pay,” the audit states. “[The employee]’s overtime pay ranged from $74K to $99K per fiscal year, or an average of $89K, and totaled $357K (or 61% of their $589K gross pay). The employee’s timesheets within this period indicated overtime work for grant closeouts, corrective action plans, and financial reporting, which resulted in under-utilization and over-expenditures of federal grants and audit deficiencies reported by the Premier Audit Group, Inc. (Premier) in May 2024.”
This particular employee, [unnamed in the audit and] whose position was Administrative Services Officer, is not the only GHS-OCD employee who made more in overtime than their salary. Out of $3.3 million in overtime paid by the taxpayers to the agency, 10 employees – most of whom were managers – were paid $1.8 million in overtime, according to the audit.
GHS-OCD historically has operated on two major federal grants that have paid for personnel, overtime, and operational costs of the agency. Because GHS-OCD obligated the overtime costs against federal grant rules, local funds had to be used to pay the overtime, raising questions about how such payments were made without a legislative appropriation. Administration officials previously have defended the use of local funds to pay for grant-related activities without legislative appropriation, saying that the obligations were booked against the grants accounts, officially showing that the government of Guam is expecting the grant funds as a receivable to reimburse the local government.
But because GovGuam received the grant funds for personnel and overtime costs, could not use the funds due to the unlawful nature of its obligation, “Federal grants awarded to GHS/OCD were wasted,” according to the audit.
Federal funds will not cover $2.8 million of the $3.3 million in overtime paid between FYs 2018 through 2023 for two main reasons: The overtime was not properly authorized, and the costs were unallocable by the grants, according to the audit.
“As a result, we questioned $2.8 million (M) of overtime costs charged to GHS/OCD accounts. We also found that GHS/OCD did not have [standard operating procedures] and allowed one employee to have authority, custody, and accounting of Federal grant expenditures,” the audit states. “Fraud risk is heightened in GHS/OCD.”
“Of the 94 payroll samples with overtime payments, 69 (or 73%) were missing timesheets and 25 (or 27%) had timesheets signed by the appointing authority (as Supervisor) and a Certifying Officer. Overtime work for four employees’ timesheets was not authorized by the Supervisor,” the audit states. “Two of the four employees’ timesheets contained Supervisor signatures that did not match the signature specimens submitted to DOA. Additionally, overtime work was not allowed by the grants charged for two employees yet payment was certified by the Certifying Officer through signing timesheets.”
These are allegations of local crimes against the GovGuam’s certifying officer statute. A certifying officer in GovGuam, according to the law, is a “person who is responsible for determining and certifying legality of the disbursement of public funds.”
The law spells out the certifying officer’s accountability for signing off on the authorized use of public funds:
The law states that a certifying officer is: “A person who certifies that payment vouchers are correct and ready for payment. The officer does not have physical possession of the funds. A certifying officer is responsible for the existence and correctness of the facts stated in the certificate or voucher or supporting papers, the legality of the proposed payment under the appropriation or fund involved, the correctness of the computations on the certified voucher, and making good to the government of Guam the amount of any illegal, improper or incorrect payment resulting from: (1) any false, inaccurate or misleading certification made by the officer; or (2) any payment prohibited by law or which did not represent a legal obligation under the appropriation or fund involved.”
