Kandit has asked the education superintendent whether the 22 percent pay raise for members of its General Pay Plan will be paid this Friday, effective April 1, 2023.
The inquiry was triggered by acting Gov. Joshua Tenorio’s submission to senators of plans to pay outstanding merit bonuses and increments, and to provide grant relief to qualifying small businesses.
“By these submissions, Public Law 37-3 can be considered enacted and the allotments therein may be disbursed,” director of administration Ed Birn wrote to the governor in a May 3 memorandum. Mr. Tenorio transmitted the plans two days later.
P.L. 37-3 appropriated the funding needed for the pay raises, which were to be effective April 1. Senators, however, made the appropriation contingent on the governor’s submission of these plans. Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero’s failure to submit the plans until Mr. Tenorio did Friday prevented the use of that specific appropriation, and therefore non-line agencies could not receive their budget allotments for the raises.
Mr. Birn, in his letter to the governor, confirmed suspicions that line agencies were able to pay out raises in the April 28 payroll run using existing budgetary authority (appropriations from the Fiscal Year 2023 budget act).
“[F]or those agencies and units with sufficient funding compensation under these revisions was paid to their employees,” Mr. Birn wrote.
Kandit’s Sunday morning inquiry to superintendent of education Dr. Judith Won Pat and her spokeswoman Michelle Franquez have yet to be answered. However, the delay in plans submission affected more than GDOE employees. According to the Birn memo, “allotments … to the Judiciary of Guam, University of Guam, Guam Community College and Public Defender Services Corporation and Alternate Public Defender were similarly delayed.”
