‘The legislature wanted wage reduction’

The Fitial administration remains confident that the Legislature would pass, and not shelve, the wage reduction bill, saying that lawmakers were the ones who favored wage reduction over hourly reduction.

Finance Secretary Eloy Inos said he hopes that allies in the Legislature would push for the bill’s passage.

“I hope they’re still putting it on the table. Wage reduction is an important part of the [cost-saving] formula. It’s a last resort but we have to do it now. the more delay, the less savings we’re going to achieve so I hope that the bill is not shelved. I hope our friends in the Legislature will work with us,” said the secretary during a press conference Friday at the Governor’s Office.

“And they [legislators] will because that’s what they want,” said Gov. Benigno R. Fitial.

“We started with the hourly reduction and then when we met with the Legislature, the leadership, they favored wage reduction. We agreed for a wage reduction instead,” said Fitial.

Last week, Sen. Felix Mendiola, chairman of the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee, said that the House Ways and Means Committee and his panel had agreed to shelve the wage cut bills pending in both houses of the Legislature, citing widespread opposition to the plan.

JUNE DEADLINE

Fitial said his administration is committed to implementing a personnel cost reduction no later than first week of June – either through wage reduction or hourly reduction scheme.

The administration earlier proposed to cut work-hours by eight hours a week or 16 hours per pay period.

This plan was subsequently shelved in view of the administration’s supposed agreement with the Legislature to pass a 10-percent wage reduction across-the-board.

If the bill is not enacted before June, he said, “we’re going bananas.”

$60K DAILY COST

Inos said the more delay in reducing personnel cost, the less savings the government would realize.

“We have the same objective: to cut costs…the deadline is first week of June. Actually, the deadline is everyday. Everyday that we don’t reduce cost on payroll, it costs us $60,000,” he said.

The government currently spends 75 percent of its annual budget to personnel.

This has to be cut especially when the administration has reduced the annual budget level from $213 million to $198.5 million for fiscal year 2006.

The wage reduction proposal is seen to save the government up to $4 million.