But civil service personnel are protected from furloughs, he said.
Without austerity Fridays and no-pay holidays, Finance Secretary Eloy Inos said the cash-strapped CNMI government must raise $250,000 worth every week or $12 million in one year for payroll alone.
Fitial said he already advised the mayors of Rota, Tinian and Saipan that their budgets will be cut by $500,000 and they must decide which of their personnel will be let go.
“The override [of the budget veto] necessitated that we reduce personnel,” he said in a media conference yesterday. “We made it very clear to the Legislature that the only way to keep the employees is through the adoption of the austerity measures. It’s now up to the mayors to submit the list of personnel they want to let go. Only temporary employees are affected. We cannot touch the civil service employees.”
Fitial said lawmakers who think he will not carry out furloughs are wrong.
“This is all politics because they are daring the governor to lay off people. They said the governor is not stupid to risk his re-election by doing that. But they are wrong. They know that. We need to stop politics because politics is hurting the people. The people are suffering because of politics,” he said.
Inos, the governor’s running mate in this year’s gubernatorial election, said the FY 2009 budget did not consider the fact that the projected revenues this year will further fall below that mark as a result of the slowdown in tourism activities.
Lawmakers have overridden the governor’s veto of House Bill 16-213 or the Appropriations and Budget Authority Act of 2009.
The last time the government had a new budget was in 2006.
“Hopefully the Legislature sees the light,” Inos said. “Every week that we don’t have an austerity holiday or unpaid holiday is a quarter of a million dollars just right off our back. We can’t afford that.”
The governor’s austerity holidays will save the jobs of contractual employees, he added.
“With the austerity measures, we feel that we can spread the pain and still allow for the government to function and provide critical services. We believe that that is the better option. We agree with the idea of a hiring [freeze] but that’s not going to do the job,” he said.
“So are they suggesting that we start firing? I don’t know; maybe nature will take its course. That will probably be inevitable although that’s not what we want to see,” he added.
The CNMI government employs some 4,000 personnel.
It was not immediately known how many among them are civil service employees.
The Legislature opposed the governor’s austerity measures because their previous implementation resulted in many exemptions and failed to meet the projected savings.
Lawmakers said the budget they passed allows agency heads to make the necessary cuts and restricts the governor’s ability to hire new personnel.
