The CNMI Senate confirmed Thursday the reappointment of Civil Service Commission board chair Raymond Mu\u00f1a to the commission. He will serve for four years. <\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a\u2019s confirmation came with a barrage of concerns requiring urgent solutions, including furloughs that could introduce more cases to CSC, and the need for a Hearing Officer to close down all the current cases that the commission has yet to resolve. <\/p>\n
Serving a second term and having been in the commission for 18 months, Mu\u00f1a welcomes the challenges ahead, and commits to do his best to look out for government employees in the CNMI. He identified furloughs as an outstanding concern, as he renews his service with CSC. \u201cThis is really new for all of us\u2026and decisions have to be made to in order for the CNMI government to be sustained and the issues brought up. Of course it requires further attention, so as a commissioner for a Civil Service Commission for the for the CNMI, I\u2019m really doing my best to look on how we can better our employees, our furloughed employees,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
During the Senate session, Senate vice president Jude Hofschneider (R-Tinian) reminded Mu\u00f1a to pay attention to the mandates of Public Law 17-80, or the Civil Service Act, as well as the Personnel Service System Rules and Regulations. \u201cWe are here to work with you, if there is a need for legislation to amend P.L. 17-80, or to come up with other corrective measures to assist our workforce that are being \u2018let go\u2019 because of the current situation that is upon us,\u201d Hofschneider added.<\/p>\n
Sen. Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) also advised Mu\u00f1a to \u2018take seriously\u2019 the points raised in the Senate committee report regarding his appointment, particularly raising concern on the lack of Hearing Officer that has led to people\u2019s cases not being attended to. During the public hearing for Mu\u00f1a\u2019s appointment, a private citizen who has been waiting for the resolution of his case, appealed before the Senate for help. <\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a said in a later interview that the CSC has now identified a person who could hear the cases, and that there are currently six pending cases, with the commission \u201calmost there to close those cases.\u201d Civil service employees who feel aggrieved may file a formal grievance with the commission. For those who have been furloughed, Mu\u00f1a advises them to consider furthering their education.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t lose out on hope. Right now, at this point, I recommend that they try and enhance their education and go attend the Northern Marianas College because it\u2019s open and they\u2019re ready to accept any student or employee in furthering their education,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s just be hopeful and maybe in two years, the economy will be back to normal. Let\u2019s say they graduate with that degree they\u2019ve always dreamed of, it\u2019s a win-win. [They can] either return to the job that they were furloughed from, or start a new job, but with the education background that could assist them in the long run.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The CNMI Senate confirmed Thursday the reappointment of Civil Service Commission board chair Raymond Mu\u00f1a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":324335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4531],"class_list":["post-324377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-civil-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324377","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\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}