by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - Christmas is coming early for Port workers who have been waiting two years to be paid their increments. Concerns were raised about an unreasonable budget that contained $2.5 million for management raises and $45,000 for iPads. Those issues needed to be addressed first and caused a delay in employees getting those increments.

Today the Port's board passed the Fiscal Year 2013 budget, leaving salaries the same as last year and giving port employees a portion of what they asked for. Board member Christine Baleto said, "What we're requesting is that an across the board hiring freeze be implemented, and this would result in the savings that we need to fund the increments. The increments are included for 2012 in this budget; unfortunately, we had insufficient revenue to fund the 2013 increments."

Baleto requested that the board come back and conduct a mid-year review to determine if there is sufficient funding to pay for the 2013 increments. The board wants to find funding to pay the current year increments before hiring any new personnel.

Acting GM Joanne Brown said the hiring freeze would also allow time for the agency and the Civil Service Commission to iron out concerns about recent hiring of individuals who were not qualified for accounting and stevedoring positions.

Any positions that are deemed critical would have to first be justified to the board before any hiring could occur.