THE House of Representatives yesterday passed a measure that approves the salaries of executive branch employees who exceeded the ceiling prescribed by law during the past administration.
H.B. 13-131, introduced by House Speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider, states that “salaries of executive branch employees in excess of applicable salary ceilings, which took effect on or before Jan. 13, 2002, are hereby approved.”
Hofschneider, R-Saipan, said the approval of the measure will constitute strict compliance with the sanction provision of section 526 of P.L. 11-41, or the existing budget act.
That section of the law states that “Public Laws 7-31, 8-15, 8-6, 9-25 and 10-35,” or the laws “with reference to salaries of graded and ungraded positions, shall be strictly adhered to.” All salary classification and compensation outside the above laws should be first sanctioned by the Legislature before its implementation.
The bill stated that the approval of salaries exceeding the cap would not be applicable to the present administration.
The speaker said the bill’s purpose is “to not make the current government accountable” for the things that were done in the past—specifically, the Legislature’s failure to sanction salaries that exceeded the ceiling.
The speaker said the present administration is left with the following choices: rescind the contracts with excessive salaries and keep them below or within the threshold, or ask the Legislature to sanction salaries exceeding the cap.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Stanley T. Torres, R-Saipan, said the passage of the bill did not mean that the House was tolerating the mistakes of the past. “It may be impractical already to go after almost 200 employees who received excessive salaries during the past administration. But this does not mean that we are tolerating the mistakes of the past administration. They did a mistake and we don’t want that to happen again. We will now concentrate on the mistakes of the present, which I think could still be rectified,” he said.
