Senate: Can govt afford conversion of personnel?

The Senate Committee on Fiscal Affairs has asked the administration’s top finance officers to report on whether the government has funds to pay costs that would result from Gov. Juan N. Babauta’s recent personnel actions.

Senator and committee chairman Joseph M. Mendiola raised concern about the financial implications of the governor’s decision to order the conversion of limited-term appointments to civil service status and to certify 47 vacant positions that could now be filled.

“Unless the governor, is responding to an emergency and with less than two months remaining in the current administration’s term, the Senate Committee on Fiscal Affairs feels, as a matter of courtesy and fiscal restraint, that the present administration should abstain and leave the filling vacancies and converting employees to permanent status to the incoming administration,” said Mendiola.

“More importantly, however, the committee finds the governor’s actions unsettling as far as they negatively impact the government’s very limited resources given that the CNMI government is in its third fiscal year without a new budget,” he added.

Specifically, Mendiola asked the governor’s special assistant for management and budget Edward S. Tenorio and Finance Secretary Fermin Atalig to report on the availability of funds to pay the personnel costs associated by the governor’s personnel actions and the accounts from which these funds will be drawn.

Babauta issued a directive on Nov. 24 lifting a four-year-old austerity measure that had prevented certain government appointees from becoming permanent government employees.

According to the governor, Directive No. 245 will clarify the employment status of locally funded limited term appointees who have completed 52 consecutive weeks of satisfactory performance. The order was issued at the recommendation of the Office of Personnel Management and concurrence from the Civil Service Commission.

Pursuant to the directive, OPM will take the following conversion actions:

∑ An employee will be immediately converted to civil service permanent status if he or she has held a permanent position and shown satisfactory performance for 52 weeks.

∑ An employee has worked satisfactorily in a position that has been justified as non-permanent will not be converted to permanent status, if the justification is found sufficient. Otherwise, the employee will be converted.

∑ An employee who has worked less than 52 weeks in a permanent position will be converted when he or she completes the required one year of satisfactory performance.

∑ An employee who has not completed less than 52 weeks in a non-permanent position will continue on a limited term appointment if the justification for non-permanence is sufficient. If the justification is sufficient, the employee will be converted to permanent status upon completion of the 52-week appointment.

∑ An appointee hired into a permanent position after Nov. 25, 2005 will be hired on civil service probationary status after going through the normal application process.

∑ An appointee hired into a non-permanent position after Nov. 25, 2005 will be hired on civil service limited term status after going through the normal selection process.