* 10 off-island candidates to be interviewed April 22-24
\n* Lack of full-time hospital finance chief concerns MPLT<\/p>\n
The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. may soon name a permanent chief financial officer after it disclosed yesterday that some 10 individuals are scheduled to be interviewed next week. All 10 are recruits from outside the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Interim corporation CEO Esther Mu\u00f1a told the board yesterday that the qualified contenders were chosen by a selection committee from an original pool of 32 applicants who responded to the job vacancy announcement in December.<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a said the corporation will offer whoever is selected a starting salary of $80,000 that will be negotiable. She said this amount was both approved by the corporation board and Executive Branch.<\/p>\n
In response to the board\u2019s queries yesterday, Mu\u00f1a said that all local applicants did not meet the position\u2019s requirements as mandated by Public Law 16-51. The position requires an applicant to have at least a master\u2019s degree in business administration and five years of experience in healthcare finances. <\/p>\n
For next week\u2019s scheduled interview, candidates were given a packet of documents such as the HealthTech Report and the hospital\u2019s annual report to give candidates an overview of the corporation.<\/p>\n
During a board meeting in March, Mu\u00f1a endorsed the hiring of a retiree from Hawaii to become the hospital CFO. She then described this person as the \u201cperfect candidate\u201d because of the individual\u2019s strong background in managing the finances of many healthcare systems in Hawaii. Saipan Tribune learned yesterday that this plan didn\u2019t push through.<\/p>\n
Meantime, board member Anthony Raho emphasized the need to immediately fill the CFO position as it is an ongoing concern for the Marianas Public Land Trust, where the corporation has a line of credit.<\/p>\n
As in previous board meetings, interim CFO Cora Ada was criticized anew by some board members who were dissatisfied with her financial reports.<\/p>\n
Particularly dismayed were board chair Torres, vice chair Pete Dela Cruz, and board member Roy Rios, who were one in saying that Ada\u2019s data were \u201cconfusing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ada explained that CHCC\u2014compared to other agencies\u2014uses a different financial system that oftentimes confuses the board. <\/p>\n
Board trustee Philip Mendiola-Long expressed concern about the $80,000 starting salary for the CFO. Mendiola-Long said he is amenable to providing up to $120,000 to $150,000 for the CFO, provided the person possesses the \u201cinstitutional knowledge\u201d that would help turn around the corporation\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n
Mendiola-Long recommended that the $80,000 salary offer be changed to \u201copen\u201d so as not to turn off potential candidates. Interim CEO Mu\u00f1a agreed to this proposal.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been almost two years since the CFO position was vacated. CHCC lost its CFO in 2012 when Alvaro Santos\u2019 employment term expired. Ada has since then been serving in an acting capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
* 10 off-island candidates to be interviewed April 22-24 * Lack of full-time hospital finance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[87,666,26,161],"class_list":["post-32720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cfo","tag-chcc","tag-cnmi","tag-mplt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32720","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\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}