WHILE the Civil Service Commission is supporting the intent of a measure that seeks to place the Office of Personnel Management under its supervision, it believes that some provisions in the measure need some fine tuning.
CSC Chairman Vicente M. Sablan, in a letter to the House Committee on Ways and Means, recommended that some relevant provisions be included in H.B. 13-126 which was introduced by House Speaker Heinz S. Hofschneider, R-Saipan.
Sablan said a transition provision should be included in the bill to transfer all records and property and the unexpended balances of appropriations, allocations, allotments or other funds available with OPM which is currently under the Office of the Governor.
According to Sablan, employees in positions within the classified civil service prior to the effectivity of P.L. 13-1 should “continue to have all the rights of civil service employees.” They should also be classified as civil service employees.
P.L. 13-1 exempted them from civil service.
Sablan said employees who were in positions within the classified civil service prior to the effective date of P.L. 13-1 and whose positions became civil service positions due to the law should “continue in their exempt status for the duration of their contracts.”
If the employees were selected through competitive announcement and met the minimum qualifications for the civil service position, Sablan said they “may elect to become members of the classified civil service in a classification and pay level commensurate with the employees’ qualifications, experience and tenure with the commonwealth government.”
Those who were hired as excepted service employees upon the expiration of their contract may become a member of the classified civil service in a classification and pay level commensurate with their experience and qualifications, Sablan said. They could continue to be employed as an unclassified or ungraded employees in “appropriate cases” with the recommendation of the appointing authority and CSC.
