Stimulus roundtable provides figures

by Krystal Paco

Guam - Wednesday night's roundtable on American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money heated up as legislators took fire on the Department of Education and their third-party fiduciary agent.  

Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz is disappointed. After all, doe failed to learn from past mistakes, as this isn't the first time Governor Eddie Calvo has had to request for a deadline extension to obligate stimulus funding. "Measure twice, cut once," he said. "If we would just learn to do it properly, we would only have to do it once as opposed to reissuing it and reissuing it."  

Of the $60 million dollars in ARRA, $50.1 million will go toward capital improvement projects and $10 million to go toward science, technology, engineering, and mathematics upgrades. To date, only $14 million of the CIP money has been executed with $22.8 million in early stages of the procurement process.

These figures left legislators alarmed. If USDOE doesn't grant another extension and the funds aren't obligated by the September 30 deadline, DOE must return the remaining funds.

Meanwhile, Senator Chris Duenas was most concerned that DOE failed to look into his recommendation: in the past, the Guam Energy Office worked with the Guam Power Authority on a memorandum of understanding to obligate funds in a timely manner. Once the MOU was signed, the federal government considered it an obligation of funds.

In terms of DOE, this vehicle could be used to purchase energy efficient air conditioning units. DOE's third-party fiduciary recommended otherwise. Lia Beauvais of Alvarez and Marsal said, "We are required to see that when funds are obligated there's a competitive process short of a competitive process we would need to see there's some particular legislation that allows for that particular vehicle to be utilized. We did not feel comfortable as signers related to the trust in allowing that GPA vehicle to be utilized."

Senator Ben Pangelinan disagreed with Senator Duenas. After all, the GPA vehicle would give GPA a 3% cut. "I don't think we're going to lose the $23 million, I think the governor has made the request to extend I think we wait for that and we continue to push forward with getting out these bids getting out the RFPs doing what is necessary getting everybody in the loop," he said.

Beauvais awaits a response from Christine Jackson of USDOE's risk management on when USDOE will respond to the governor's request for an extension.