The annual salaries of these personnel, which range from over $13,000 to over $22,000 each, will amount to $256,000, Sen. Maria T. Pangelinan said in her report to Speaker Arnold I. Palacios, R-Saipan.
“Why suddenly is there money to hire and fill these vacancies?” she asked.
She said the administration plans to pay for these new personnel by imposing austerity measures — pay cuts — in fiscal year 2010, which starts on Oct. 1.
“It makes no sense to fill these positions in the last quarter of FY 2009 only to have to reduce their salaries or lay them off at the beginning of FY 2010,” Pangelinan, D-Saipan, said.
The positions, she added, are “not critical and the decision to certify should at least wait for the legislative review of the FY 2010 budget to determine the actual number of employees currently on board, their personnel costs, and whether these vacant positions can be funded without imposing salary reductions on existing employees.”
The FY 2009 budget law, P.L. 16-32, which was enacted after lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto, requires legislative approval for new hirings.
Pangelinan said this review “is not to verify that the positions are budgeted or vacant” but “to make sure that the positions are critical to providing public services, and…will not be draining funding from other services….”
Finance said it needs to hire an auditor I, revenue agents I, revenue technicians I, tax technician I, revenue enforcement officer III, revenue agent II, revenue agents III, and revenue officer I.
Pangelinan said these positions have been vacant for months or years. One has been vacant since Nov. 1997.
There is no justification to show that these positions are critical, she said; otherwise they would have already been filled.
“How can we justify the certification of non-critical replacement hiring when we overrode the governor’s veto to enact P.L. 16-32 which prohibits the replacement of non-critical positions, and the governor himself anticipates that current personnel will be subjected to salary reductions in FY 2010 to pay for existing employees?”
