“There has been no communication in any form that any of the established hiring process or procedures will be waived by the governor,” Borja said.
He said a fair and competitive system has been followed by the local census office and this is augmented by CNMI and federal hiring requirements.
No application is entertained if it lacks supporting documents even if the applicant has passed the basic test.
All applicants must meet all the requirements before they can begin to work, Borja said.
There are concerns that applicants for the census job are being selected based on the governor’s preference.
Variety was told that many of those who have undergone training for census taking were taken out on the day the work should have started, and were replaced by others who barely meet the requirements.
One of the applicants, who requested anonymity, said the number of those who made it after the training was down by almost one half when the census field operation started on April 1.
The source said many of the applicants who believed they met all the requirements had already been doing on-the-job training in the field for two days but to their surprise, they were told prior to the census kick-off that they were not going be hired.
Another source who got the job said there were applicants who were told they failed because they lacked needed documents. However, they were given the chance to turn in these documents.
Yesterday, the source said many of these applicants were called in.
Borja said the hiring process of the local census office is lengthy. It ensures everyone gets a fair chance of being selected for the positions applied and for the staffing level needed for each assignment area, he added.
These requirements include finger printing, police clearance and drug testing as well as satisfactory completion of the required classroom training, which is a must, he said.
Borja said all candidates who have completed the required training will be paid for their attendance, and those who have not, won’t be.
He said on April 1, only the employees whose documents had all the required signatures and a prepared photo ID were allowed to work.
On April 5, however, the personnel action forms of those in the second group were completed and they were called in to receive their ID’s and work schedules, he said.
The 2010 Local Census Office, Borja noted, operates under the guidelines and procedures of the U.S. Census Bureau.
However, all local census personnel are employees of the CNMI government through the Department of Commerce.
The CNMI government entered into a contract with the US Department of Commerce’s U.S. Census Bureau.
As the contractor, the CNMI government must furnish the necessary personnel, materials, equipment, services and facilities for the conduct of the 2010 Decennial Census of population and housing in the CNMI, Borja said.
They followed the hiring process that was released to the media in December and January, he added.
For the Census 2010, he said over 390 underwent the training in which full attendance and satisfactory completion was mandatory.
He said those who attended the training will be paid for that training according to the appropriate CNMI government pay schedule.
