by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - The Guam Legislature met for the last time regarding Governor Eddie Calvo's spending cuts bill Wednesday evening. During the hearing, the governor's education liaison, Vince Leon Guerrero, provided clarification on the proposal regarding teacher personal leave. Leon Guerrero noted the provision eliminates the older law and leaves in place a better, more expansive and newer law.

He expressed, "So we felt this was a much better option to remain on the books and to make it clear in case there's any question about fiscal year, teacher versus educator, when does it take affect and some more brilliant legal minds shared the law of construction of how you would interpret this that this is actually going to be the one that would prevail in conflicts."

Bill 507's provisions allows cashing out any personal leave balances and does not require the balances to be in blocks of eight hours currently, as previously required. It further allows teachers to be paid their entire remaining balance at the end of the school year typically 12-14 weeks sooner than the end of the fiscal year, and allows teachers to convert any unused personal leave balances to sick leave provided they make such decision at least 30 days prior to the end of the school year.

Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz meanwhile asked Leon Guerrero to send an e-mail to Department of Education superintendent Jon Fernandez to allay any concerns and panic from educators. Cruz meanwhile left the record open to 10 days on comments on any section of the bill. He further hoped the Government of Guam Retirement Fund and the Calvo Administration will in fact meet to come up with a plan they can both agree on relative to the proposal on early retirement and the extension of the amortization.