Lieutenant governor says he's to blame for TAG pay raise error

Lt. Gov. Josh Tenorio says it was his mistake when it came to signing off on a $41,000 raise for Military Affairs Director and Adjutant General, Lt. Colonel Esther Aguigui.

"We discovered the error together actually thanks to your news story when it came out," Tenorio told KUAM News.

That news story: a signed request for a 12-step jump in pay for Guam National Guard Adjutant General, Lt. Colonel Esther Aguigui signed by then acting Gov. Josh Tenorio on July 10th, 14 days later it was signed off and approved by the Department of Administration, hiking Aguigui's salary from $81,000 to $123,000 a year.

Initially, Adelup Communication's Director Janela Carrera said there was money for the raise. A day later, however, she retracted the statement saying the raise was inadvertently processed. Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero said it wasn't a mistake it was an error. So what exactly happened?

"What happened is when I'm acting governor documents that routinely go to the governor for signature come to my desk after being vetted or processed by legal office or chief of staff," Tenorio explained. "And in this case that personnel action came to be first and I assumed that it went through the clearances and so you know the change that we're making is making sure that we have them initial the document so that we know that everything is cleared and I assumed there was proper vetting that there was rationale and my mistake was that I didn't push back and ask for that evidence so I take responsibility for that I think."

Although it was a mistake, don't count out a raise for Aguigui. 

"We'll wait for the folks to come out with the paperwork the rationale we will review it I don't have a timeline yet but you basically take a look at the volume of the job 1,600 people under an individual's supervision, take a look at what's going on in the market," Tenorio said. "There's some lows there's some highs there's other factors military pay gets a little complicated."

But what about, her predecessors? Former TAG Roderick Leon Guerrero was paid an annual salary of $81,522 and his rank was a Major General.

"All I'd say is that you're taking a look at the course of time and you know for a long period of time all of those salaries were frozen sometimes they go up sometimes they get receded on the general fund side that usually happens on the autonomous agencies you see those happen routinely that's kind of like the disparity between the line agencies and the autonomous agencies," Tenorio said.

While we wait to see what happens, for now, KUAM News gets a salute from Guam's second in command.

"Good job on the transparency because it helps make sure that we follow the right protocol," Tenorio said. "It helps improve our government."

Meanwhile, while last week Gov. Leon Guerrero said Aguigui's raise would be canceled, KUAM got the official documents today and they show Aguigui's raise was canceled – today. The cancellation of the $41,000 raise has an effective date of July 8. The paperwork was signed by Gov. Leon Guerrero.