Minority leader Rep. Edwin K. Propst (Ind-Saipan) expressed disappointment Friday following reports of Cabinet officials submitting requests for overtime authorizations despite the furlough of government employees.<\/p>\n
In April, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Civil Service Commission\u2019s Office of Personnel Management furloughed employees to reduce government personnel costs by half. It was also deemed \u201cnecessary to be terminate\u201d all excepted service employees, other than those federally funded or exempted by the governor.<\/p>\n
Last week, a leaked CSC document showed a request and authorization for 41 hours of overtime work for Public Safety Commissioner Robert A. Guerrero, for COVID-19 safety and security operations, signed by the governor.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter all the illegal overtime that was paid out after Super Typhoon Yutu, with all the abuses that occurred, so much so that over $10 million of overtime that was paid for by local taxpayer dollars was never reimbursed by [Federal Emergency Management Agency], the illegal overtime continues to happen, and this time it is under another disaster, COVID-19,\u201d Propst said. <\/p>\n
The lawmaker, citing the CNMI experience during Yutu where \u201csome Cabinet members received up to $36,000 in overtime,\u201d said that provisions of the Compensation and Work Schedules and the Compensation of Certain Appointed Officials make it unallowable for Cabinet officials to receive overtime pay. <\/p>\n
Propst also stressed that it is inexcusable to claim overtime for hours when the officials should be normally working, and that those earning much higher salaries than front-line workers are expected to work extra hours. <\/p>\n
\u2018Employees first\u2019<\/p>\n
Responding to this, Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said that it is not just Guerrero\u2019s request that he signed, but all of the Cabinet members.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not just DPS. I signed all of the Cabinet [members\u2019] overtime. Those are overtime hours worked. I wanted to make sure that their hours are also calculated, and it is only right for me to make sure that their hours are signed and calculated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
No payment has been paid yet, as according to the governor, as they want to make sure that lower ranked employees get paid first. FEMA also has yet to approve whether those overtime requests are covered under the reimbursable funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of employees that work on this COVID-19. Whether those overtime [hours] are covered under FEMA is yet to be approved by FEMA, and that\u2019s why [in the case of] the overtime [of] Cabinet [members], we want to make sure that all our employees who\u2019s worked overtime are justified for reimbursements first, before moving forward to the Cabinet members,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With FEMA rules and regulations governing COVID-19 operations, employees are asked to justify their scope of work, line of duty, and hours worked. Employees worked varying hours in different sites addressing issues, especially for the first 60 days, where work was done 24\/7. <\/p>\n
As for Cabinet members, Torres said that \u201cwhen teams are getting heated up,\u201d they go to Cabinet members who are responsible in ensuring their departments are run right. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey work the hours, they\u2019re there constantly making sure that their officers, their employees are doing right and they do work, so they should be paid and they should be calculated on the hours put,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u2018They\u2019re there to work\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n In a message to everyone, including government employees who have been furloughed and claiming and calling out the government for unfairness, Torres explained that all those requesting for overtime authorization are working disaster hours.<\/p>\n \u201cThey shouldn\u2019t be discouraged because the work that has been put into this COVID[-19], these are disaster hours. \u2026Again, none of them are being paid now, but their hours are being calculated, which rightfully so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you prioritize health care and actions and work needs to be done, those employees, whether they\u2019re Cabinet members or first responders, when work needs to be done, they\u2019re there to work. So it\u2019s only right that their hours are calculated, whether they\u2019re Cabinet members, or someone from [the Department of Public Works] that are at [the Saipan International Airport] doing community based testing or other work,\u201d the governor added.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry that we are where we\u2019re at, that our economy is shut down from COVID[-19], that there\u2019s no tourists coming in, but that\u2019s out of our hands. We can\u2019t do anything about it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n MD: Torres on overtime issue: These are disaster hours.<\/p>\n KW: Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, overtime, FEMA, COVID-19, furlough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Minority leader Rep. Edwin K. Propst (Ind-Saipan) expressed disappointment Friday following reports of Cabinet officials…<\/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":[485],"class_list":["post-324403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-ot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324403","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=324403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324403\/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=324403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}