by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - The end of Fiscal Year 2011 came Friday, and the Government of Guam had received $236.7 million in American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funding - some of which needed to be spent or obligated or the island's public sector might lose it.

Today not only marked the end of the fiscal period, but also the deadline for GovGuam to spend or obligate certain stimulus funding. According to Bureau of Budget Management & Research director John Rios, GovGuam lost approximately $2 million in ARRA funding, noting the lost funding came under the Department of Public Health & Social Services. "I think there was a couple of programs that had a little problem, there was two million that was back in September 2010 that lapsed and part of the reason for that one was because there was no local matching funds for that," Rios explained.

Rios says GovGuam had met the deadline for about 99.8 percent of the ARRA funding but it could have been worse had the governor not created the ARRA Rapid Response Team. Breaking down the figures, he said, "Basically out of the $236 million in ARRA funds, $66 million has already been expended. As of today, $142 million has already been obligated or encumbered which leaves a remaining of $28 million."

He says the $28 million expires between 2012 to 2015, which leaves GovGuam time to get it encumbered or obligated. So how does one lose money?

Rios says it isn't uncommon to lose money from ARRA funding and it definitely is something they work against. "If you don't go through the process and don't find a program or a project that needs to be done and you pass the deadline then you lose the money for federal funds," he said. "Sometimes we would go back and for some instance, for ARRA funds, we had to go back and request from USDOE to provide or approve an extension."

He says other challenges are when a protest occurs in the procurement process and remains in court. Rios says the Department of Education had received one of the major chunks of ARRA funding, $60 million of which would go towards capital improvement projects. The ARRA Rapid Response Team had stated that several ongoing projects related to ARRA funding included the Guam Energy Office's efforts to provide new streetlights throughout the island and retrofitting GovGuam buildings with energy efficient lighting and air conditioning units.