By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

THE Office of Personnel Management is now preparing a reduction in force plan for all civil service employees of the executive branch as Gov. Benigno R. Fitial himself informed the public during his State of the Commonwealth Address on Friday.
“As a last resort,” he said, “I have asked the Office of Personnel Management to prepare an implementation plan for a reduction in force that would affect all civil service employees. This is a legal requirement that I must follow before I make any decision whether such a reduction in force is necessary. It is my hope that the Legislature and this administration will work together to achieve the necessary cost reductions before fiscal year 2008 so as to make any reduction in force unnecessary.”
Fitial’s memo dated April 24 instructed OPM Director Mathilda Rosario to establish “retention standing and bumping rights for each employee, a timetable for implementation, form letters and requisite notices.”
As required by the law, the memo added, “you are hereby notified of my intent to implement a reduction in force. This reduction will be implemented for civil service employees in all executive branch departments and agencies and at all levels of employment.”
Fitial said he “deeply regret the personal difficulties” that his policy will have on government employees but there is no other alternative.
“This is the only way to ensure the government can continue to meet its financial obligations. I urge the mayors, the municipal councils and the legislative and the judicial branches to join the executive branch in these cost-cutting measures,” he said.
A cabinet meeting is scheduled for today at the governor’s office.
Rosario has since written all department and activity heads about the administration’s reduction in force plan.
The plan will affect “all excepted service employees, limited term, provisional and probationary appointments” and then the civil service employees.
“I will prepare and disseminate an implementation plan that will provide you with a timetable, implementation steps, qualifications to determine which employees will be affected and which will be exempted from this action, form letters and tools to monitor the effects of this action,” Rosario said in her April 25 memorandum to all department heads in the executive branch.
She said the plan is justified by the islands’ dire economic situation.
“The government is required to use the reduction plan procedures when an employee is faced with separation or downgrading for a reason such as reorganization, lack of work, shortage of funds, or other management requirements, or the exercise of certain reemployment (sic) rights,” she said in a memo.
In an interview yesterday with Variety, Esther Fleming, the governor’s special assistant for administration, said they have begun talking with various agencies in the executive branch about how to implement the plan.
“I’m working with various agencies. Almost all offices in the executive branch will be affected,” she said.
“But before we can touch any civil service employee (whose employment is protected), we first do not renew the contracts of employees on limited-term appointments and excepted service appointments,” she added.
Fleming reiterated that the governor’s directive will not include the legislative and judicial branches or autonomous government agencies.
“We don’t control the autonomous agencies, the legislative or the judicial branches. The question is why always us. We’re facing hard economic times (other agencies should also pitch in),” she said.
About 75 percent of the CNMI government’s $193.5 million budget is allocated for personnel salaries.
This fiscal year 2007, the original projected revenue may drop by $30 million.