On Friday, the Division of Revenue and Taxation submitted a request for 10 new employees and as chairwoman of the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee, Sen. Maria T. Pangelinan was tasked to verify if there is funding for these positions.
“We actually have a stack of these requests [from other agencies],” she said in an interview. “I’ve to look at them to help me prepare for the FY 2010 budget.”
Rev & Tax, a division of the finance department, is complying with the budget law, said Pangelinan, D-Saipan.
“The positions are budgeted, but the budget law actually freezes hiring, so if they need to hire, they have to justify to the Legislature that the position is critical.”
She noted, however, that one of the requested positions became vacant in 2008.
“Now, suddenly, almost a year later, they decided that it’s a critical position. These are management decisions. If you could leave it vacant for months, then it can be vacant for years — it’s not really critical.”
The Senate president and the House speaker have to approve these hiring requests.
Pangelinan, a former finance department director, said “money that’s not used for months for these vacancies were probably used for something else. So how do we know if the money’s still there? But we continue hiring and that’s why we have deficits.”
Among the positions that are considered “critical” by the hiring agencies are an executive secretary for the Northern Islands mayor, a Superior Court records assistant, a replacement to a judge’s secretary, a community worker, an office planner, a revenue officer, a tax technician and a revenue enforcement officer.
“All new hires yet some of these agencies waited so long to replace them,” Pangelinan said. “One position was opened and closed in Aug. 2007. The last time it was filled was Nov. 1997, and suddenly they need to hire again. This is for a revenue agent 1/compliance officer 1 with a salary of $18,500 a year.”
She added, “Is there money for of all these hirings? We’re now verifying the FY 2009 list of current employees and we’ve asked for a confirmation from each department and agency so we’ll know if there are other new hires. Some of these positions were not filled immediately because we didn’t have the money — now suddenly, we have money.”
Pangelinan reiterated the importance of a new budget for each fiscal year.
“The budget tells the people how their government will serve them — it sets the priorities and details the services for the people. That’s why need to have a new balanced budget each year.”
The FY 2009 budget became law after the Legislature overrode the governor’s veto last March, five months into the new fiscal year, which started on Oct. 1, 2008.
Government agencies continue hiring new personnel “yet when we ask questions from them no one can give you answers,” Pangelinan said. “Some retirees, for example, have not received their stimulus checks but Rev & Tax can’t explain why other retirees got theirs. The quality of some of our hires is really questionable.”
