By Pacific Island Times News Staff
The administration has itself to blame for Guam Memorial Hospital’s funding shortfall, Speaker Therese Terlaje said, noting that the executive branch had refused to give the hospital the amount it requested for fiscal 2025.
GMH will receive only $37 million under the newly signed budget act for fiscal 2025. It requested $74 million for its operational needs but the Bureau of Budget Management and Research proposed only $31 million. The legislature added $6 million in the final version of the budget law.
Now pending in the legislature is Bill 354-37, which proposes a $20 million supplemental appropriation for GMH, tapping the government of Guam’s surplus revenues. Terlaje, chair of the health committee, introduced the bill shortly after the budget law was signed.
On Tuesday, Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero agreed to make the government's "surplus" revenue available to GMH.
“If the senators are true to their word about going out there and campaigning that they want to provide health care for the people, then do it by giving them the money,” the governor said.
Terlaje, however, said the governor’s plea was inconsistent with her cabinet's skepticism of GMH’s request.
During a budget hearing, Terlaje asked the governor’s GMH Fiscal Review Committee why it was not advocating for the amount requested by the hospital.
In response, Lester Carlson, director of the Bureau of Budget and Management Research, replied: “It seems every time they [GMH] come before the legislature with a request to get supplemental funding for vendor payments to get caught up and stay above water, a few months down the road they’re coming back asking (Administration Director Edward) Birn, asking me, for additional supplemental funding.”
As an autonomous agency, Carlson said, GMH was “required to be self-sufficient, but I don’t see the same effort administratively as I do firsthand having been a patient.”
Sen. Joe San Agustin has introduced a separate supplemental budget that would also tap into the government’s so-called surplus revenue.
Terlaje, however, noted that San Agustin’s Bill 355-37 “fails to address GMH’s shortfall.”
The bill proposes supplemental appropriations for several agencies including the Guam Department of Education, University of Guam, the Guam Community College and the Guam Police Department among others. GMH is not on the list of the proposed recipients of the windfall.
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