CRM may retain nonresident staff
Pointing out the continued need to depend on nonresident workers for some positions in the government, legislators are now looking at giving the Coastal Resources Management the authority to hire alien staff.
A legislative proposal now sits before the House of Representatives to include CRM in the list of government agencies allowed to retain and hire nonresident staff under an existing law which was signed by Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio in December 2000.
Rep. Oscar M. Babauta, proponent of House Bill 12-343, mentioned the absence of specially skilled local workers to fill in vacant and delicate positions at the CRM.
His proposed measure, however, specifically mentioned slots for engineers and scientists as the only positions in CRM that can be filled by nonresident workers.
Under PL 12-34, the Department of Public Health, Department of Public Works, Northern Marianas College, and the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation are the only agencies allowed to hire certain positions within the Commonwealth government.
At the public health department, nonresidents can fill in positions for physicians, midwives, dentists, nurses, laboratory technicians, radiologists, respiratory technicians, physical therapists and pharmacists.
However, this exemption for DPH would expire on Sept. 30, 2005, which means no nonresident workers may be employed in the covered positions after this date.
On the other hand, DPW can hire nonresidents for technical and professional positions like engineers, and architects. The public works department can only retain and hire nonresidents until Sept. 30, 2002, after which all its alien staff should be given their walking papers.
Like DPH, the College can continue hiring and retaining nonresident staff as instructors, research scientists and other technical and professional employees but would have to retrench them all by Sept. 30, 2005.
CUC can also hire aliens as technical and professional staff but the utility corporation should also be nonresident workers-free by Sept. 30, 2005.
PL 12-34 was implemented amid admission from both the Legislature and the Administration that there is yet an insufficient locally available labor pool to supply the professional and technical needs of some CNMI government agencies.
But they all contended that this fact was the basis for the exemption granted to a number of public agencies to retain and hire nonresident workers within a specific timeframe. (Aldwin R. Fajardo)
