By Troy Torres
While the Guam Police and Fire departments are struggling to hire people to save lives, the University of Guam has been handing out pay raises by the tens of thousands, and hiring throughout the pandemic.
In case it isn’t painfully obvious to administrators, UOG is a school that taxpayers fund for a main purpose: to educate its students. Its classrooms have been closed since March 2020.
Yet, within a 24-hour period, 11 people rushed the paperwork needed to pay Peter Barcinas big bucks to fill a position that has nothing to do directly with students.
Personnel documents requested by Kandit News show Barcinas, who was making $88,707 as an Extension Agent III at UOG’s Cooperative Extension Service, now makes almost $20,000 more as the Interim Associate Director of the same office.
You are now paying him $107,744 a year while classrooms are closed.
The huge pay raise and promotion, which was made effective February 2, 2021, will run for one year and end January 31, 2022. According to UOG’s policies on interim appointments, the UOG president may hire someone in an interim role to fill a vacancy until someone is selected through the competitive merit-based process.
The previous associate director, Dr. Sereana Dresbach’s appointment ended on schedule on January 31 this year, creating the vacancy. UOG did not announce the vacancy or conduct a job search to allow others to compete for the position. Instead, a series of emails that began January 28 this year and concluded 24 hours later rushed the hiring of Barcinas.
At 11:08 a.m. January 28, Megumi Hikicki created the hiring request document to pay Barcinas $107,744 a year and emailed it a few minutes later to Dr. Lee Yudin, the dean of the College of Natural and Applied Sciences, under which CES falls.
At 2:05 p.m., Dr. Yudin opens the document, reviews it within 30 seconds, and e-signs it.
Four minutes later, the CNAS accountant Christine Visosky, opened and signed the document within seconds.
Minutes later, Rachel Cubacub, the university’s associate budget procurement officer, opened and signed the document; again, within seconds.
The following morning, university’s financial chief, academic chief, and president all signed off on the $20,000 pay raise. No one took longer than two minutes to review the document they e-signed, according to the documented time stamps.
What does this guy do?
{AUTHOR'S NOTE: The following are from personal knowledge and observations]
I have worked in the Governor’s Office for many years, and I can tell you in all honesty that I have no idea what the UOG Cooperative Extension Service is except a slush fund for UOG’s politicians.
I also, unfortunately, have had to sit through presentations Mr. Barcinas has made at the Governor’s Office. After all these years and all those presentations, I still have no idea what he does at UOG. I guess I’m just not smart enough to understand it all. All I know then and now is he gets paid lots of money to do whatever it is he does, while nurses, teachers, doctors, and law enforcement officers continue to struggle.
This is the third in our investigative series report on runaway spending and pay raises at UOG. The first two stories in the series detailed two pay raises UOG chief marketing and communications officer Jonas Macapinlac received during the public health emergency.
Both men - Barcinas and Macapinlac - now are paid more than Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, most of her cabinet, most public nurses, teachers, and law enforcement officers.
