Guam -The Guam Citizens for Public Accountability has FOIA’d the Guam Power Authority and the Guam Waterworks Authority to get to the bottom of the pay raise and bonus issue.
Ken Leon Guerrero, spokesperson for the group, said they have submitted the FOIA requests to obtain documentation on the closed door meeting where the pay raise decision was made.
Executive managers were given a 10 percent raise or bonus on top of their 6 figure salaries.
When the news broke, Consolidated Commission on Utilities chairman Joey Duenas said that “they pay their managers what they are worth.”
Leon Guerrero disagreed with Duenas’ statement.
“I mean we can’t say that they deserve the pay raises because the utility systems are running so much better than a year ago when we still have brownouts, black outs. 60 percent of the water that we pump out of the ground, at great expense, never makes it to a meter. So it can’t be based on their performance on the job,” Leon Guerrero said.
He added, “So I want to know what their justification was to give themselves massive pay raises and bonuses when they are very well compensated for the jobs they were hired to do.”
According to Leon Guerrero, he wants to see the criteria used to justify the $10,000 to $25,000 thousand raises.
He also questioned a statement made by Duenas in which he allegedly said that the managers “show up for work every day,” as a justification for the raise.
Leon Guerrero said they have started a petition against giving the executives raises and bonuses.
The petition is being circulated in anticipation of a meeting with the CCU to formalize the pay raises and bonuses in the manner directed by the Attorney General’s Office.
