DOE still determining merit bonus eligibility

by Krystal Paco

Guam - It may be months before doe can determine who's eligible and how much is owed in meritorious bonuses since 1991, when the law relevant to paying out bonuses for employees who received superior evaluations was first established. At today's Guam Education Board meeting, members discussed how past evaluations only rank employees as satisfactory and unsatisfactory and whether a satisfactory evaluation is truly a superior rating.

DOE superintendent Jon Fernandez says up to 10 employees are reviewing over 3,000 paper-based personnel files, which he says could take up to three months to review. And although there's no money to pay out bonuses, $2 million was budgeted in the Fiscal Year 2014 budget to do so.

"We don't have the money right now," said Fernandez. "Right now, we're just focused on figuring out who would be eligible should money become available, and that's also the reason we put $2 million as a placeholder in the FY2014 budget."

Fernandez says he'll work through these issues, including whether or not to go back as far as 1991 or only pay out the last three-years in line with the statute of limitations.