LIEUTENANT Gov. Diego T. Benavente said he and Gov. Juan N. Babauta “welcome” the investigation being conducted by the Office of the Public Auditor on the hiring of certain employees under contracts that give them salaries beyond the imposed cap.
This, even as the House of Representatives said it will take a closer look on the hiring practice to establish whether it was aboveboard.
Benavente assured that the administration does not intend to violate nor railroad existing statutes in granting increased salaries to these employees.
“It is a welcome audit. The governor and I do not want to be doing anything that would violate the statute,” Benavente said.
Benavente assured that the administration will be more than willing to “cooperate” with what may be proposed following the investigation.
“Either the public auditor would come out that it is within our authority or not, then we have to resolved that,” he said.
“But certainly, we both do not want to violate any of our existing statute.”
House Speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider, R-Saipan, said that he has instructed Rep. Stanley T. Torres, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means to compile all the certifications on the lifting of the salary cap transmitted by the Office of the Governor to the House.
Hofschneider and Senate President Paul A. Manglona, R-Rota, were recently informed by the governor that he had lifted the salary cap of some of his appointees.
In three separate certification letters, Babauta informed the two leaders that he has certified the salary rates of the following individuals:
* Francisco I. Taitano, the governor’s special assistant for customs and quarantine, who will receive an annual salary of $60,000 or $10,000 more than the salary cap for that position.
* Celina R. Babauta, the governor’s secretary, who will receive $45,000 or $15,000 more than the salary cap for secretaries.
* Juan I. Castro, director of the Division of Environmental Quality, who will receive $55,000 or $5,000 more than the salary cap.
Also, the governor last February transmitted to the Legislature a certification on the lifting of the salary cap for Robert J. Schwalbach, Babauta’s senior policy advisor.
Schwalbach will receive an annual salary of $65,000 or $15,000 more than the limit for that position prescribed by law.
Likewise, based on the request for personnel action forms, copies of which were obtained by the Variety, Trinidad T. Berdon, the governor’s personal assistant, will receive an annual salary of $50,000 while Mathilda A. Rosario, the acting personnel director, will receive an annual salary of $55,000 or $5,000 more than the salary cap.
In most of the certifications, Babauta invoked 1 CMC 8250(c) in raising the salaries of these individuals. That section of the law states that “if the governor certifies to the presiding officers of the Legislature and the chairman of the CSC that after a diligent effort, the commonwealth is unable to recruit a professionally or technically qualified person to take an appointed position, he or she may waive the salary ceiling established by law for that position.”
Hofschneider said that while he does not want to “second-guess the administration’s action or intention, consistency in policy” is still “required.”
The speaker said that he knows “there are only a few positions… difficult to fill” that are authorized by law to be exempted from the salary cap.
He said that as far as the “secretarial and non-essential levels” in the government are concerned, the decision to lift the cap “may in fact be within our decision here in the Legislature.”
“Basically, that’s the intention of the exemption law—simply for physicians, doctor, lawyers, civil engineers or architects. There’s only a handful of specific occupations or personnel that require a hard-to-fill position to avail themselves of the exemption. I maybe mistaken, but I do not know of any law extending that same exemptions to personnel,” Hofschneider said.
The speaker, however said he understands that the governor “has to be given the flexibility” to choose his own people who he thinks would be effective in the delivery of public service.
But he nonetheless raised concern over the increase of the salary of an appointee who was designated as secretary. “I don’t really think that it was an appropriate citation of the exemption law for that specific secretarial position”, he said.
