by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - Lawmakers once again reconvened in the Committee of the Whole on Thursday morning continuing to cut away at the governor's spending cuts proposal while adding in their own suggestions for savings. The discussion continued on Bill 507, otherwise known as Governor Eddie Calvo's Omnibus Fiscal Reform Act. And while the bill proposed spending cuts up to $70 million, sections were deleted Wednesday, notably provisions related to the Government of Guam Retirement Fund with projected savings of up to $40-$60 million.

These particular provisions were opposed by the Retirement Fund. "So we removed most of the sections and we added some other sections on other saving provisions as we were asked to do," said Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz. Governor Eddie Calvo meanwhile says he's concerned on what was deleted from the bill but nonetheless understands its part of the legislative process. As he mentioned before, if lawmakers are going to amend any part of the bill, they also need to replace them with other areas for savings.

He said, "Because in the end we still have this fiscal cliff and issues of these issues on this deficit that we have to surmount, and ultimately it means that we're going to have to have necessary funding for funding primary critical service and yet at the same time paying tax refunds on time,"

Wednesday's discussion saw amendments requiring the Retirement Fund within 60 days to transmit to the governor and the Legislature a report analyzing the feasibility of Retirement Fund reforms along with a 10% salary cut of elected leaders and unclassified employees in any agency or autonomous agency who make more than $50,000 a year. More changes were made today such as deleting a provision that would discontinue the practice of leave sharing for military members who are deployed and instead limit the leave sharing for medical purposes only.

It was in September the governor's special assistant on military affairs, Mark Calvo, testified in support of this provision he told lawmakers that in most cases when a service member is deployed-they see an increase in pay and receive several entitlements to ensure their families are taken care of on the homefront. Despite his testimony, lawmakers scrapped the provision.

Said Cruz, "We've given them the ability to move to the front of the line, we've given free license plates, but when we're go into send them to the front line, we don't even give them enough money, I don't think so. I couldn't do it."

Lawmakers also removed provisions relative to maternity and paternity leave. Meanwhile, Senator Judi Guthertz introduced an amendment relative to the Modernization and Rightsizing Commission of the Government of Guam. She said, "So if we're really committed to dealing with this then we should deal with root cause of these problems rather than just the immediate issues."

The amendment was part of her Bill 445, which was just vetoed by Governor Calvo because of concerns over how the bill may violate the separation of powers requirements as it requires one member of the commission to be appointed by the speaker. Lawmakers deleted that section and included the amendment.

With all the slicing and dicing, just how much in savings does the new version Bill 507 bring to GovGuam? Cruz says between one to $3 million, but don't expect that to happen overnight if the bill is passed. "The rightsizing should be able to do a whole number of things, but it may not be immediately translated today, but if they sit down and talk about with the Retirement Fund and do the rightsizing, then maybe tens and millions there. But you just need to site down," said Cruz.

Lawmakers rose from the Committee from the Whole and recessed for the day. They're expected to vote on the Bill 507 along with several other measures tomorrow morning at 11am.