Nine months after being sworn in, the Guam Ethics Commission still has no staff, no office and no money.

The governor revived the commission a year ago - which she had promised to do during her campaign - after a 23-year hiatus. She appointed five board members who were sworn in in June of last year. They held their first meeting in September, submitted a budget proposal in October and took ethics training in December.

Chair Shannon Murphy tells KUAM the board is "eager to get started" - but they can't do a thing until they get their $200,000 budget. So we asked Bureau of Budget Management and research heads Lester Carlson what the hold up was.


"Rome wasn't built in a day, the coronavirus is not going to be solved overnight," he responded. "Standing up a commission that did not have a fund source to support it takes a little longer to effectuate simply because they're just needs to be some identification of funds."

The ethics commission's role is to investigate alleged ethics violations committed by government employees. Carlson said there was no funding for it in the Fiscal Year 2020 budget. Another campaign promise made by the governor - establishing a "government improvement hotline" that would take complaints about "fraud and abuse."

With either of these up and running, we asked Carlson if the public was still able to submit ethics complaints to commission members in the meantime.


"That requires an investigator, that might require some legal assistance," he said. "It's certainly going to require some management level people. So the board - a policy board - should they be doing the investigating work that is ultimately provided to them for review? I think they cannot do both and you should not do both."

Murphy tells KUAM the commission's budget will be used to hire an executive director, administrative officer, investigator and legal counsel. Once that's done, before the commission can accept complaints it still has to create a process to receive complaints, create a public awareness campaign, implement an education campaign and move into an office.


"We are in the process of finalizing the fund source from 2020 to allow for all of that to happen," Carlson said. 

The money will come from "appropriate and available" general fund monies, but he adds that the commission's Fiscal Year 2022 budget of $400,000 was included in the governor's budget request sent down to the legislature - so it could be next year before the public is able to file ethics complaints with the body," he said. 


"In 2021 they'll be better situated to really be focusing on what they've been charged to do,"  Carlson said. 


Finishing touches are being put on the old legislature building -but he said even without a home if the body gets its money, it can do its job.


"The facility is not ready, but that doesn't prevent them from once the fund source is available, bringing on essential staff so that in the interim they can still address their mandates," Carlson said.