The University of Guam 2019 boosted the local economy in fiscal year by $349 million, created 4,191 full-time jobs, and generated $78.5 million in local taxes\u2014all while operating with an annually decreasing appropriation from the government, which totaled $27.4 million in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These figures were detailed in a report by UOG economics professor Dr. Maria Claret M. Ruane, who was commissioned to prepare an overview of the university\u2019s expenditures and economic impacts in the past fiscal year. The report was finalized in July and released this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The report notes that the University of Guam had three major impacts to Guam\u2019s economy in fiscal year 2019:<\/p>\n
1. UOG contributed $1 of every $17 in Guam\u2019s economy.\u00a0
\n2. UOG created one in every 15 jobs in Guam.\u00a0
\n3. UOG generated $1 of every $8 in GovGuam tax revenues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the isolation of this region, the University of Guam is an even more integral part of its community than most universities. It touches every industry of our islands and every aspect of life here,\u201d said UOG president Thomas W. Krise. \u201cWith this report, Dr. Ruane has pulled the data to quantify just how integral this university is\u2014not only in the education of our professional workforce, but in its equally impactful roles as an employer and as a consumer of local products and services.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Local spending\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The report calculates that $33.83 million of UOG\u2019s $86 million expenditures for the year was spent with local businesses and agencies. Including payroll, this means that more than 86% of UOG\u2019s expenditures stayed in Guam. A total of $12.45 million were spent with off-island suppliers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is important for performing impact on the local economy,\u201d the report states, \u201cas amounts paid to off-island suppliers\/vendors do not stay and multiply in the local economy and hence do not create local jobs, incomes and generate tax returns to the local government.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the report, the top five industries supported by university\u2019s expenditures are finance and insurance, utilities, \u201cother services\u201d not including public administration, construction, and retail trade.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe diverse range of businesses on island provides the vast majority of what we need to operate, and we know that every dollar spent here fuels our local businesses contributes to local tax revenues, and helps employ the local population,\u201d said Randy Wiegand, UOG vice president of administration and finance and chief business officer.\u00a0 Ruane notes that UOG directly and indirectly created one in every 15 jobs in Guam. Put another way, UOG created 4,191 jobs, and of those jobs, 849 were direct employees under UOG, 206 were jobs able to be created through UOG\u2019s spending with on-island suppliers and vendors, and 3,136 were jobs able to be created as a result of spent incomes of direct employees, indirect employees, and UOG alumni.\u00a0<\/p>\n The report notes the value of UOG alumni in the economy, as their incomes and purchasing power increase as a result of their degrees. Ruane\u2019s report cites data from a 2020 survey of UOG alumni that shows that those who earned bachelor\u2019s degrees have increased their annual earning potential in Guam by $15,000, many coming from part-time or no wages prior. And those with a master\u2019s degree have added $5,000 to their previous professional-level salaries.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn this report, Dr. Ruane calculates that there are approximately 12,000 UOG degrees currently being utilized in Guam\u2019s workforce, and they are cumulatively earning their degree holders $156 million more than before. That is a substantial increase in residents\u2019 income overall that gets circulated back into our economy annually through increased spending and also through tax revenues,\u201d said Anita Borja Enriquez, UOG senior vice president and provost.\u00a0 The report states that UOG generated $1 of every $8 of tax revenues collected by the government of Guam. More than $78 million in tax revenues were generated through income taxes, gross receipts taxes, and Medicare, which nearly triples UOG\u2019s $27.4 million government appropriation. The overall amount accounted for 12.6% of Guam\u2019s total tax revenues in fiscal 2019 and represents an 187% return on Guam taxpayers\u2019 money.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAn investment in UOG yields great returns for Guam,\u201d Krise said, specifying that UOG delivers an educated and higher earning professional workforce, job creation across all industries, and tax dollars infused into the government of Guam to fund public services.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBeing able to now quantify the amount of money UOG generates in the economy and the value returned to the community makes a strong case for the government of Guam to invest more deeply in the university,\u201d Krise said, \u201cand we hope that businesses and other organizations seek to develop more partnerships with UOG.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Copies of the report are available at\u00a0www.uog.edu\/economic-impact.\u00a0(PR)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The University of Guam 2019 boosted the local economy in fiscal year by $349 million,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":327945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[51,445],"class_list":["post-327938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-guam","tag-uog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nJob creation\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nCash\u00a0 infusion<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nInvestment<\/strong><\/p>\n