ACCORDING to local media, Gov. Edward "Pepsi" Calvo has withdrawn $3 million in cuts to firefighters' pay originally set forth in the spending cuts bill, purportedly because Sen. Taijeron has introduced legislation dedicating to the Guam Fire Department $1.3 million in savings to be realized from a consolidated telecommunications procurement.
This procurement has been hung up at GSA for four months, and promises to be hung up for many more months as the protests of three telecommunications providers wend their way through the appeal process. Yet Pepsi is acting as if he already has these savings in hand, available to be deployed to GFD, not to mention the remaining $1.7 million originally planned to be cut from GFD.
When will Pepsi start acting like a governor?
The "tough decisions" Pepsi commends to the Legislature would have it approve two raids on the Retirement Fund: 1) granting 500 employees an incentive to retire early by allowing them to buy five years of credited service; and 2) extending the amortization period for the Unfunded Liability by 10 years. The last time the Legislature did the former, in 1999, the unfunded liability was increased by $100 million.
These proposed raids on the Retirement Fund, should they be effectuated, will lead Guam straight to the hell the CMNI is now experiencing, what with its Retirement Fund expected to go belly up in a matter of months.
Instead of commending to the Legislature that it make "tough decisions," Pepsi should start acting tough himself.
Rather than slyly trying to slip the turd into the Legislature's pocket, Pepsi should step up and immediately lay off 3,109 executive branch employees. This would, of course, gut the executive branch, but would have the salutary effect of forcing the Legislature to reduce expenditures of other branches and agencies of government beyond the governor's purview, to allow the health and safety functions of the executive branch to be restored to a minimal level.
This solution wouldn't be pretty, but it would get the job done.
Joe Guthrie,
Guam and the Philippines
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Letter to the Editor 
When will Calvo start acting like a governor?
When will Calvo start acting like a governor?
When will Calvo start acting like a governor?
- Monday, 24 Sep 2012 03:00am
- LETTER TO THE EDITOR
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