Guam senators warn performance-based budgeting must account for DOC staffing shortfalls
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Summary
At a March 9 oversight hearing, DOC leaders and senators told the Committee on Public Safety that chronic officer shortages, high caseloads and facility constraints make a standard performance-based budget difficult to apply; staff requested pay adjustments and more recruitment support.
The Committee on Public Safety, Emergency Management and Guam National Guard heard March 9 that chronic staffing shortages and a heavy pretrial population complicate applying performance-based budgeting to the Department of Corrections.
"We need at least 60, 70 prisoners to run the facility effectively," Warden Wharton Borja told the committee, describing perimeter vulnerabilities and sustained turnover that leave single officers supervising dozens of detainees and inmates. Borja said DOC manages roughly 900–927 clients islandwide and is short of the officers needed for safe operations.
Senator Chris Barnett and other committee members said lawmakers must avoid a "cookie-cutter" approach. "If you want you to improve your performance, then we're gonna have to put, you know, the people's money where our mouth is," Barnett said, stressing that funding reductions in the broader budget process would limit DOC's ability to meet new performance targets.
Senior DOC staff provided recruitment and staffing details: Major Elgin reported 222 applicants, with 83 under evaluation, 73 rejected and 66 in testing; eight candidates were pending drug clearance, and 15 recruits recently graduated but still required post-certification. "We have the money. We're just not having a lot of qualified candidates," Major Elgin said.
Theresa Tayama, DOC's Casework and Counseling Services Administrator, said programmatic capacity is also constrained by staffing. She reported DOC's casework budget at $665,894 and a caseload of roughly 393 classified inmates and more than 500 detainees. Tayama said her caseworkers carry about 90–100 clients each, well above an ideal 1:50 standard, and cited a 28 percent recidivism rate for people returning within 12 months.
DOC witnesses and senators recommended several policy options to reduce operational strain: targeted pay increases or incentives to improve retention, creating a detention-facility-guard classification to help manage pretrial detainees, strengthened cross-agency diversion programs with Guam Behavioral Health and the judiciary, and continued recruitment outreach. Barnett said he supported a compensation study and warned against imposing performance metrics without commensurate resources.
The committee held these matters open for follow-up; members said they will revisit performance-based budgeting details when DOC can provide fuller information and when agency budget submissions are due.