Guam - Governor Eddie Calvo has officially started the reorganization of Government of Guam agencies. There's no doubt GovGuam is heading in a new direction, as the island's chief executive announced that at the start of the new fiscal year, several agencies will be consolidated.

Come October 1, the governor's reorganization plans will make major waves as the Chamorro Land Trust Commission and the Guam Ancestral Lands Commission will be merged into the Department of Land Management. As announced Wednesday at a press conference, Governor Calvo officially approved the reorganization of the land agencies with CLTC administrator and new director of Land Management, Monte Mafnas, in hand.

Using reorganization plans of past governors as guidance, the Calvo Administration decided to reorganize the government one service mission at a time to alleviate any difficulty. Former Department of Land Management director and freshman senator Chris Duenas says he saw the potential while at DLM and introduced legislation early in his term relating to a consolidation.

He says this will be a model and template of how to reorganize the government in the future, noting, "This reorganization allows to really truly allow Land Management to step up those subdivisions so those people can realize the efforts of home ownership, multifamily dwellings and the skies the limits from here." He added, "This is set of agencies that really have all the key components of bringing revenues into the government and I think we have to be a little careful on looking at what kind of slashing in agencies that are vibrant and are actually going to bring in their own revenue."

This first step in the governor's reorganization plan begins with identifying redundancies and eliminating them; consolidating functions, services and resources and eliminating duplicated costs such as rent, utilities, travel and training. Mafnas says this reorganization will have a cost savings of over a quarter of a million dollars right off the bat.  He added that benefits included reduced manpower; and a push to utilize the information technology to streamlining operations.

"Where eventually you can go on the Internet and it's a virtually reality and access all documents pertaining to land and our dream is to set up a one-stop service for scanning, indexing and copying and creating redundancy on the confidential files of Chamorro Land Trust and Ancestrals," said Mafnas. He adds that come next month, they'll all make best use of the Land Management office floor area but will eventually break ground on its own building in Hagatna set to be complete in about two years.

The reorganization is just the first phase of the process. In addition to identifying redundancies, there will be an immediate elimination of six positions including deputy director of land management, administrative director of CLTC and GALC; a private secretary position, engineering aide position and a land abstractor position. He adds more positions will soon follow as well. The first layoff and position eliminations are at the highest levels of the land services programs and will ensure the same process moving forward with other services and programs.

Calvo says at the end of Fiscal Year 2012, he hopes to not have an increase in the deficit but rather a balance or surplus. He said, "I'm not going to sugar coat this, if there's going to be a cut in personnel or in increments, I don't think any employees like that, some people may unfortunately have to lose their job, but there's an understanding of the reality of where this government's at.

Calvo says this is the first of many steps and a lot more needs to get done and the public can expect in the next few weeks to see a transition of the government and further announcements of reorganization. Calvo will be leaving to Japan next week on a trade mission and once he returns in early October will have news on reorganizing the cultural agencies.

Ultimately, Calvo believe these plans will be able to create a "government that is a lean, mean fighting machine".