Decorum is behavior in keeping with good taste and propriety. Unfortunately, Senator Chris Duenas has chosen to abandon decorum when it comes to how he speaks about just compensation for GovGuam workers.
The other day, Chris Duenas called into former Senator Robert Klitzkie’s show “Tall Tales” at The Point. Chris was calling to continue to be “the bad guy.” I would rarely use those words to describe someone, (besides obvious bad guys like Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, etc.) but those are the words he chose to describe himself, so I honor his own choice of words.
About giving the 22% pay raise to Government workers Duenas said, “I don’t know anything more of a … far left conversation that you can have beyond that.” The honorable senator added derisively, “If that was the solution, … why not give a 100% raise? We’ll all be rich.”
Giving a 22% pay raise AFTER NINE YEARS of stagnation is far from unreasonable, especially taking into account the increase in the cost of living and developments in private sector wages during the same period.
As we have discussed before, the cost of living has risen 35% in the last 9 years. That means a worker at the same job and with the same number of years of recognized service has 26% less purchasing power than they did in 2014.
During this same time period, average private sector wages in Guam have risen 26% and U.S. mainland wages have risen 35%. In other words, as we have mentioned before, GovGuam pay offered by the General Pay Plan are far less competitive.
Attracting and retaining qualified workers to GovGuam service is essential to ensure that quality of services can be maintained or improved. Continuing to pay inadequate wages leads to an inadequate workforce which leads to inadequate services. If the wages offered by GovGuam are low compared to other potential employers, GovGuam managers’ ability to retain workers will limit their ability to demand improved performance.
It is unfortunate that Chris Duenas scoffs at delivering these long-overdue pay raises to the GovGuam workers. He offers a list of excuses, none of which hold any water. Senator Duenas in 2014 supported TWO pay raises which were not dealt with in the context of a budget process. In fact, he offered a bill to fund pay increases outside of the budget. The second pay raise he supported that year included a retroactive pay raise for himself, for which he got a $14 thousand retro check. What is particularly sick about that bill is that there was no public hearing. It was introduced that day and passed later the same day. Is this hypocrisy? Yes. It seems on the face of it that Chris does not believe that pay raises must be handled through the normal budget process.
If Chris has changed his position, maybe he can explain why he was so willing to disregard this matter of principle in 2014 under a Republican administration. It seems unusual that the principle would reverse when the state of GovGuam’s finances under the current Democratic administration has completely reversed itself. In 2014, there was a budget deficit. During that administration, the deficit tended to increase except when buoyed by a bond issuance. Currently, there is an unaudited budget surplus. In this administration, the deficit turned into a surplus and is on pace to continue growing. If anything, there was more reason to question the affordability of the pay raise at the time.
Personally, I believe pay must be regularly adjusted to meet market conditions. Affordabilility is simply a matter of controlling cost growth and maintaining revenues. As long as revenues are maintained and cost growth is managed responsibility, there is no need to steal from Peter to pay Paul. GovGuam’s revenues are sufficient to fund adequate pay for GovGuam workers while also investing in public infrastructure.
So where is the opposition really coming from? What Chris won’t say is that he plans to pick the pockets of GovGuam workers to fund a tax cut for business, which affects under 15% of businesses on Guam, specifically the biggest businesses. Over 85% of Guam businesses face the lowest BPT tax rates in decades, a tax cut of 40%. The biggest few businesses have seen a modest increase from 4% to 5%. Even this is a low tax rate compared to most U.S. jurisdictions. And no one should forget that this modest increase was to partially offset the regressive Trump tax cuts, which included a huge tax cut from 35% to 21% for corporations (reducing the corporate income tax rate by 40%).
GuamMinimumWage.org 