Emergency checks for storm response canceled due to confusing Guam law

By Pacific Island Times News Staff

The Department of Administration has prepared individual checks directly to each mayor's office, following a procedure outlined in an emergency law that allocates $8 million for resource mobilization in response to Typhoon Bavi.

The administration, however, said it has begun taking urgent steps to cancel each check after the legislature clarified at Thursday morning’s Committee of the Whole hearing that the funds should be channeled through the Mayors Council of Guam instead of being pipelined directly to individual mayors’ offices.

“In other words, the legislature’s intent differed from the language ultimately enacted into law,” the executive branch noted in a statement. “Even seemingly minor differences in statutory language can produce significant legal and administrative consequences.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Public Law 38-134 is almost similar to the emergency funding measure enacted by the legislature in response to Typhoon Sinlaku, which hit Guam in mid-April.

“While the objective of both laws was the same, the language enacted by the legislature was not,” the administration said.

The Sinlaku-related law allocated funds to the Mayor’s Council of Guam, designating the body as the fund administrator on behalf of the individual mayors.

The Bavi response law appropriates funds directly to each mayor’s office.

“Executive agencies do not have the authority to rewrite statutes or substitute assumptions about legislative intent for the words adopted by the legislature. Our responsibility is to implement the law as written,” the administration said.

“We therefore respectfully encourage careful legislative drafting so that enacted laws clearly reflect the policy the legislature intends to achieve, minimize uncertainty and avoid unnecessary delays in delivering services to the people of Guam.”

Subscribe to

our digital

monthly issue