Guam - It's a reality check for the Guam Education Board as the Department of Administration puts their two cents in as to whether Department of Education employees should be paid their increments.  "To me, it looks like a whole political decision and I don't think, in all fairness to the teachers, I know they work hard, I know they're very deserving but so are the rest of the government employees who haven't received increments," stated DOA director Benita Manglona.

It was Wednesday morning the Guam Education Board made a unanimous vote to pay salary increments justifying the need to pay off current obligations or shoulder the costs next fiscal year from the local budget, especially to federally-funded employees. According to Manglona, if DOE can afford to pay salary increments, it can afford to make payroll and utilities without picking from the remaining balance of their 15% reserve.

In a letter addressed to DOE superintendent Jon Fernandez and GEB chairman Francis Santos, Manglona emphasizes that semi-autonomous or not, DOE pulls from the same pot of cash as the rest of GovGuam. "The government is struggling to pay tax refunds, and even DOE for that matter on the 2011 audit report it's showing that they have $29.6 million in liabilities that needed to be paid out," she explained. And back in 2004, DOE signed a promissory note with GPA for $15 million and we're paying $200,000 a month from the General Fund for that - that's about $2.4 million that we're still paying and there's still a balance as of September 30 of over $4 million and then we took out a bond to pay $6.5 million of their retirement contribution that was not paid out before. So these are issues that need to be addressed."

Already DOE has picked at nearly half of their $30 million reserve to meet payroll and utilities, but of the $16.5 million remaining, $2 million was previously budgeted for increments. Those funds, however, are not money in the bank and for that reason along with Governor Eddie Calvo's freeze on salary increments, Fernandez says paying out DOE pay raises is unlikely. The superintendent said, "I think it doesn't serve anyone's interests to be misled particularly with regard to their compensation. What I'm going to hope for is that our elected officials, our board members, and I can sit around a table and keep the lines of communication open because I think we need to focus on the key customers in this equation, which really are our students."

Manglona has agreed to meet with Fernandez and the education board to further discuss DOE's financial situation but in the meantime, recommends that Adelup hold any further releases of the agency's reserve.