Reported By: Javeline Camposagrado

In early January of this year, Governor Lou Leon Guerrero signed a public law allowing an increase of pay towards law enforcement. It led to a noted 18% increase in overall pay towards Guam’s law enforcement, and while at the same time there has been no word towards the education faculty.   

The argument for this mandate was that many law enforcement officers of Guam ended up going to other international agencies for what is believed to be the “Wage Gap”.   

After numerous meetings with Governor Leon Guerrero, the Guam Police Department, and law enforcement divisions, they concluded to have that an increase of 18% to make up for the 18% lacking in the national average for law enforcement salaries.   

According to a quote from an Instagram post of Governor Leon Guerrero’s account,   

“This is a necessary action to take, otherwise we will continue losing our trained and certified officers to competing agencies and the federal government.”   

The post goes on to say that this was the right time to act, in this regard, and how law enforcement has been vital to Guam’s communities.   

However, the comments on the post say otherwise with many outrages that the priority was mistaken.  

“this is what ur concerned about?” from user, @exunderscoreandthenmyname, states. 

“Nothing like buying votes in an election year! Way to go, Lou! ” mocks user, @_jr_monty_. 

Many also argued that law enforcement was not the department that needed the funding, but rather, the education department because of their efforts during the COVID pandemic.    

Referring to an article from the Post Guam website, “Education Board backs increase in teachers’ pay” by Jolene Toves, it seems that Guam Education Board member Alecxis Ada had noticed the disparity of treatment of education faculty and had tried to propose a solution towards the issue.   

Ada proposed to the board, in a desperate 5 minutes, to add education pay raises to the fiscal year 2023 draft proposal budget topic.   

While the argument stands that Ada believes that the numbers could lean towards the salary raise, there is a firm understanding that implementing it or even arguing for it is an endeavor all on its own.