Drop housing perks

I write to express my strong support for House Bill 12-34 which proposes to eliminate housing allowances and government housing for government employees hired from off-island. The time has come for this important piece of legislation to ensure fair treatment and equal benefits among local and off-island government employees.

The Legislature can turn to the Public School System as the pilot project that demonstrates the cost savings that would result in eliminating government subsidies for housing to off-island hires. I believe it was Public Law 10-35 that eliminated housing benefits for teachers while providing for the increase of salaries as an adjustment in taking away those benefits. The result is that the Public School System was literally “forced” to hire locally and offer competitive salaries, rather than perks and benefits, to all potential employees.

Opponents of House Bill 12-34 argue that it will result impact the government’s ability to recruit professionals, such as doctors and attorneys, to work in the CNMI. This argument is flawed because instead of benefits such as housing, the government can simply offer competitive salaries to these professionals. Indeed, it is already a great benefit that the Commonwealth pays for the travel and repatriation expenses for these employees as well as storage costs or shipping costs for their personal or household items.

Those who oppose House Bill 12-34 are those who have come to expect such benefits as some sort of an entitlement or right that has become “institutionalized.” Agencies often seek waivers of local vacancy announcements by claiming that no local candidates qualify for positions when in reality they have already recruited from off-island. These agencies, including the Office of Public Auditor and the Office of the Attorney General, have a history of favoring off-island employees over local and qualified candidates. If you want an example, ask the Office of the Public Auditor and the Office of the Attorney General when was the last time they announced a vacancy for an attorney or an investigator for their offices. If you ask the Office of Personnel Management, another agency that seems to believe that off-island hires make better employees ( an ironic proposition from a local standpoint), you will find its files replete with requests for waivers of announcements for attorneys and investigators.

House Bill 12-34 poses a threat to those off-island employees who have fed from the government trough and from taxpayer’s pocketbooks for too long. They can’t stand the thought of taking money from their own pockets to pay for rent or of living in a place on Saipan other than the beautiful hills and views on Capitol Hill. When a bill threatens to take away perks taken for granted for so long, it is not surprising to hear arguments that are being advanced. In effect, the opponents to this bill assert that we will always need government housing for off-island hires because local talent is “always” unavailable. The argument is not only without merit, it is discriminatory against locals employees.

To correct this inequality I took the liberty of drafting similar legislation that would ensure that locally hired government employees receive in salaries what their off-island counterparts receive in the form of housing benefits or other perks. The policy behind the bill is the same policy that underlies House Bill 12-34: fair treatment and preference of local workers and to end unfair compensation practices that benefit off-island hires.

For the foregoing reasons, I urge your committee to issue its report and findings that recommend the passage of House Bill 12-34. More importantly, the Legislature should urge the Governor to sign this bill into law.
In these times of austerity and decreasing resources, the last thing we need is to continue such benefits to people who have no plans of residing permanently in the CNMI.

Robert T. Torres