Department of Public Safety Commissioner Ernest Mark Williams is closely monitoring the overtime incurred by DPS personnel as part of the administration\u2019s cost-saving measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am monitoring personally every pay period all the time,\u201d said Williams, citing that if he has inquiries about certain overtime he calls the supervisors to his office to explain.<\/p>\n
He, however, pointed out that sometimes overtime would go up whenever there are big events coming up such as the Flame Tree Festival and the Micronesian Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut for the most part we make sure that our officers don\u2019t abuse the overtime system,\u201d said the commissioner in an interview with the Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
With respect to spending, DPS has been using a lot of federal grants particularly for travel expenses during off-island trainings.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor any off-island travel that we do, none of the money comes out from the CNMI. It\u2019s all 100 percent federally funded. We are saving the CNMI great deal of money as far as trips are concerned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
William said some equipment and computer system that go to DPS are all obtained through federally funded grants. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo we are not incurring any additional cost for the CNMI due to our current state,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n
The commissioner said the shortage of staff is the reason why overtime is going up.<\/p>\n
\u201c If we fill up 100 percent of our positions then overtime will go down. So it would be a great idea when we go for the next year\u2019s budget to try to fill up all FTEs [full-time employees] that are currently vacant. If we get everybody that we need, then overtime will naturally take its course and go down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Williams said there is still overtime, but the department has to be smart and creative in initiating cost-saving measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be a challenge, but I think we will be able to manage the people that we have and make sure that the quality of service to the CNMI doesn\u2019t diminish at all,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Department of Public Safety Commissioner Ernest Mark Williams is closely monitoring the overtime incurred by DPS personnel as part of the administration\u2019s cost-saving measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}