Pacific Island Times Vol 3 No. 10 October 2018 | Page 5

Brief Chat
Benjamin Cruz, public auditor
‘I’ll be watching you’
N
ewly sworn-in public auditor Benjamin
Cruz vows to be a fierce watchdog of pub-
lic funds as he was when he was the chair-
man of the legislative committee on appropriations.
And he starts at his own new office. Barely warm-
ing his seat at the Office of Public Accountability,
Cruz began purging the agency, giving walking
papers to three highly paid top executives and two
new employees on probation. It was a
painful decision to make, he said,
but under fiscal duress, that’s
the best he could do.
Relieving five employ-
ees is part of Cruz’s 2019
budgetary reform at OPA
which he announced on
his first day in office
on Sept. 17. The fiscal
realignment is aimed at
cutting personnel cost
which, at its current lev-
el, will bring the OPA at a
deficit 10-percent budget
slash it gets
under
By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
2019 budget. OPA stands to receive $1.2 million,
which is $140,000 less than its current budget.
OPA’s current staffing pattern shows personnel cost
at $1.3 million.
The OPA’s 2017 Citizen-Centric Report issued
August 2018 indicates that this agency tasked to
audit the government of Guam and red-flag public
fund misuse is not beyond reproach. OPA overspent
its FY 2017 budget of $1.4 million by $100,000 by
dipping into cash reserves. In opening the books for
FY 2018, OPA preliminarily expects to overspend
an additional $160,000. “The OPA cannot be the
office that continues to overspend its appropriated
funds and then tell every other government of
Guam agency to live within their means. It is
unconscionable to say one thing and do anoth-
er,” said Cruz, who replaced Public Auditor
Doris Brooks. “OPA will lead by example to
make the difficult, but necessary cuts to cope
with the FY 2019 budget cuts.”
The OPA’s top executives who are headed to
the exit door are Deputy Public Auditor Yukari
Hechanova, Special Assistant Rodalyn Gerardo
and Executive Secretary Llewelyn Terlaje. They
are longtime OPA employees holding un-
classified positions. According to the
staffing pattern, Gerardo is receiving
$127,829 in annual salary and
benefits; Hechanova, 132,053;
and Terlaje, 112,929.
“It’s painful, because the
three of them combined
have 40 years of institu-
tional knowledge,” Cruz
said.
The relief of five em-
ployees is estimated to
save OPA $450,000 and
leave $100,000 in leftover.
As former speaker of
the legislature and chair-
man of the appropriations
committee, Cruz is fully
familiar with each gov-
ernment agency’s budget.
“As the Office of Public
Accountability, we have
to lead by example. With
a reduced budget, we’re
going to have little sufferings,” Cruz said. “Unfor-
tunately, we have to be the first one to take those.”
Cruz clinched the public auditor position, beating
Hechanova, during the Aug. 25 special election.
The Guam Elections Commission had called the
special election following the resignation of Doris
Flores-Brooks, who is on the campaign trail for the
congressional race. Flores-Brooks held the public
auditor position for close to 20 years.
Cruz served at chief justice of the Guam Supreme
Court from 1999 to 2001, before joining the legis-
lature in 2005. He assumed the chairmanship of the
appropriations committee following the death of
Speaker Ben Pangelinan in 2014. The job entailed
scrutinizing every budget request. Cruz’s scissors
were always on hand ready to cut any superfluous
funding proposal. He would flash the STOP sign
for any reckless borrowing plan. Like his predeces-
sor, Cruz, naturally, was in constant battle with the
executive branch.
Now tasked with a closely similar job with a new
job title, Cruz warns government agencies that he
would be relentless. His goal is to ensure that audit
reports won’t end up collecting dust. Under OPA’s
standard operating procedures, auditors follow up
on their recommendations for agencies six months
after the initial audit is released. Without any pros-
ecutorial power, the most that OPA could do was
hope that the agencies are following through with
the office’s recommendations.
“One of the things I want to do as public auditor
is to move forward and monitor what happens to
our reports,” he said. “We will do a weekly moni-
toring, instead of waiting for six months when they
come back to us to say they didn’t follow through
with our recommendations.”
On top of Cruz’s list to call is the Department of
Revenue and Taxation and the Department of Land
Management to follow up on OPA’s real property
tax audit, which found 3,500 unidentified property
owners with delinquent taxes. “The budget that the
legislature passed last month includes $1 million
in new real property tax, but I am afraid Rev&Tax
still does not have the names of these property
owners and we won’t able to assess the tax and
make the collections,” Cruz said.
But Cruz said he will make sure it happens. “If I
have to call them every other day, I would do that
to make sure they are doing what they have to do.”
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