by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - It was a packed house at the Guam Legislature this morning as numerous Government of Guam workers along with their department heads came out for an over three-hour informational briefing on the governor's Hay study plan proposal.

Lawmakers wanted information on the reasoning, method and purpose behind the proposed changes to the plan. Along with providing brief details of the similarities and differences between the 2010 and 2014 plans, lawmakers questioned the pay raises for certain positions including elected officials.

DOA director Benita Manglona said, "But it's your decision if you want to remove the elected leaders, that's your prerogative, but it's just a recommendation, it's a plan that we submitted, that DOA worked on, so you're perfectly free to do whatever on the elected positions." Senator Mike San Nicolas said, "I'm just having a difficult time with the messaging that is being put out, I support paying our unclassified and our classified employees what they deserve, but I also believe that we should be fair to our employees but we should be fair to our people and we shouldn't be giving raises to the management or to the governor or the lt. governor or to the senators, when the quality of life our people is not improving."

San Nicolas said he would make an amendment to take out senators in the plan. Meanwhile, the Judiciary of Juam along with the Mayors Council on Guam were on hand to also share their position on the increase for their respective employees.

Josh Tenorio said on behalf of the island's court system, "The Judiciary disagrees with the inclusion of the positions - we believe that these positions should be omitted to the plan and if this plan is adopted without any amendment, there is reasonable question whether or not the Judicial Council's authority to set classification and compensation for its employees will be intact when the Legislature is in the full affect of the law as adopted the plan as submitted by the governor pursuant to the statute."

Mayors Council executive director Angel Sablan noted, "If it wasn't for this Hay study, we don't see any other opportunity for the unclassified employees of the Mayors Council of Guam to get anything from anybody as far as salary is concerned." Sablan added of its 200+ employees, only seven are classified.

Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz meanwhile tells KUAM News that a public hearing will be held next Friday to address possible amendments to the plan. He hopes something will be introduced early next week with a public hearing scheduled for Friday.