Guam senators race for share of $105 million federal tax remittance

By Jayvee Vallejera

News that Guam will soon receive a $105 million federal remittance check has sparked a quick rush among some Guam lawmakers competing to secure a slice for their priority bills.

The governor's office said it expects an advance payment of Section 30 monies to be sent to Guam on Sept. 15.

Guam had expected to get only about $85.2 million of that money, but the U.S. Department of the Interior announced the new amount, which is $20 million more than originally projected.

The annual “cover back” funds represent federal income taxes and fees collected by the U.S. government from federal employees and military personnel stationed on Guam, which are remitted to the Guam government to offset the impact of federal activities.

The extra money on the table has prompted three senators to put forward competing proposals for a portion of it.

Sen. Sabrina Salas Matanane, who chairs the Committee on Health and Veterans Affairs, has introduced Bill 358-38 to channel nearly $19.9 million to build a new Simon Sanchez High School. The school was closed last month after failing health and safety inspections.

Sen. Vincent A.V. Borja, chairman of the Committee on Education, Public Libraries, and Public Broadcasting, is pushing to designate $20 million to the Guam Department of Education for a phased approach to school repairs.

GDOE officials estimate that bringing Guam’s public schools into good condition would cost more than $427 million.

Sen. William A. Parkinson has introduced Bill 356-38 to give power consumers on Guam three months’ worth of credit as a form of relief from the high cost of electricity. He characterized this as putting money “back into the pockets of people.”

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Salas Matanane’s bill creates the Simon Sanchez High School Modernization Fund, setting aside $19.9 million for the new school.

“This is money we weren’t expecting when the budget was put together,” Salas Matanane said. “We have an opportunity to put it toward something our community has been waiting years for—a new Simon Sanchez High School.”

Bill 358-38 also reduces the government's existing financing authorization for Simon Sanchez by the same amount.

Fresh off an oversight hearing his committee held for GDOE last month, Borja wants to dedicate $20 million of this additional money to repair Guam’s public schools.

He said Bill 357-38 is intended to break Guam’s longstanding cycle of waiting for schools to reach crisis conditions before the government acts.

He said it’s been known for decades that Guam schools were getting older, yet nothing was being done, and now the cost to repair everything after decades of deferred maintenance has reached a price tag of more than $427 million.

He concedes that his bill’s $20 million allocation is just a fraction of the total needed, but this is precisely why Bill 357-38 adopts a phased approach.

“We are not going to insult the public and pretend $20 million solves a $427 million problem,” Borja said. “This is Phase One. We identify the highest-priority health and safety projects, we fund them, we require accountability for how the money is spent, and then we continue working through the list.”

Borja said this focuses on a systematic, multi-year school rehabilitation strategy.

He said future phases should be driven by GDOE’s facility assessments, with clear project priorities, cost estimates, timelines, and public reporting.

Parkinson’s Bill 356-38 proposes to appropriate $16.8 million to provide Guam Power Authority customers $100 power credits each for the months of September, October, and November, for a total of $300 per account.

Parkinson noted that Guam already has a successful power credit program, the Prugråman Ayuda Para I Taotao-ta Energy Credit Program—one of the fastest mechanisms available for delivering broad-based cost-of-living relief.

“We know this works because we have done it before,” Parkinson said. “There is no complicated application, no waiting for a check and no bureaucracy standing between a family and the relief. The credit appears directly on the power bill. It is one of the quickest ways we have found to put government money back where it belongs, in the hands of everyday people.”'

Parkinson said this cost-of-living relief for Guam residents is appropriate after the recent passage of a business tax cut.

“We provided tax relief for businesses in the budget. Working families deserve relief too,” Parkinson said. “Families are paying more for groceries, housing, transportation and utilities. If additional revenue comes through the door, some of it should go straight back to the people struggling with those bills.”

Electricity bills on Guam have been going up and residents have also been experiencing load shedding.

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