Guam - The Guam Attorney General's Office says it recognizes the bottleneck in the process to review all procurements that exceed $500,000.  The AG's Office says it currently has a total of 146 solicitations and contracts that have been identified for review, however admits that the Civil/Solicitor Division continues to experience a shortage of attorneys to review the procurements.

Attorney General John Weisenberger has been meeting with island leaders in the past week in an effort to resolve the issue. Along with requesting for additional staff attorneys, the AG's Office is also optimistic about legislation that would designate special attorneys general where feasible in autonomous and line agencies.

The Department of Education expressed the need to have contracts for document management, food and custodial services procured before the beginning of the upcoming school year.  Weisenberger has assured DOE Legal Counsel Fred Nishihara that once the legislation is signed into law that special assistant AGs will be designated to for DOE.