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On Cost-Cutting Measures
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Posted on Apr 19 2002
The Issue: Efforts by essential departments to cut cost. It’s a good move for as long as cost-shedding doesn’t compromise public services.
It is fiscally responsible for top management in the public sector to proactively engage in cost-cutting measures.
The Department of Public Safety and CHC (health services) have begun cost-cutting measures in order to stay solvent and ensure continued delivery of services.
The two departments are one of three most essential agencies, the Public School System being the third.
The recent increase in crime–from misdemeanor to felony–is an issue that comes into focus as DPS tries to cut cost.
Indeed, the NMI’s financial resources have taken a slide beyond our wildest imaginings such that most public sector managers are now too busy trying to avoid being poor as to forget how to get rich.
The cost of health care will not subside either. In fact, it is bound to increase by leaps and bounds, revenue decline or not. Policymakers need to take the issue beyond debt (how much the NMI owes local and off-island health providers). They must come up with a health plan that ensures coverage for one and all!
Leadership must also review what the NMI’s dwindling financial resources could afford in terms of medical referral expenses. A decision should be made which is which: Hawaii or Philippines hospitals. In other words, financial reality must be allowed to set-in sooner than later.
The challenge to DPS is the apparent increase in felonies. It includes murders involving alleged hired guns from without to crimes perpetrated from within. The island seemed to be a crime-ridden venue even against all out efforts to ensure safety.
Getting rid of overtime for its officers may not be the wisest avenue to take and not when criminal activities skyrocket in tandem with the bad economic times. It may be good fiscal policy but at the expense of compromising the peace and security of the general public. Cuts must be made elsewhere in order to allow DPS to work with both hands.
