Previous Story
Housing perk for CHC staff no more
Those still under old contract will get benefit until contract expires
With the law creating the housing allowance for off-island hires long expired, the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., the entity that operates the public hospital, finally announced that all housing benefits are to be stopped, effective last Friday.
However, if an employee still has a current contract that stipulates the allowance, then CHCC will honor that contract and continue to pay the housing benefit until the expiration of the contract, said CHCC chief executive officer Esther Muña.
She said the removal of the allowance is long overdue since the law that created it had already expired but the corporation opted to maintain the benefit until this point when it can no longer afford it.
Public Law 14-91 [Extension of the Sunset Provision Act] expired on Sept. 30, 2007, for positions other than physicians and dentists. That law states that housing benefits shall remain for off-island recruits “for a period of not more than two years after the effective date of this act, and such regulations may not be amended.”
Muña said that after the expiration of a current contract, the next contract won’t provide any housing benefit.
As for employees who have yet to sign a new contract with the corporation, their new contract will have the housing benefit removed effective Dec. 1, 2014.
Muña noted that the corporation spends over $650,000 a year on housing benefits alone.
“There is obviously a gap between local nurses’ salaries and foreign nurses’ salaries. The corporation believes that in order to move forward in having fair compensation that also incorporates merit and performance, this gap needs to be removed,” she said.
“Please understand that this decision was not easy but we feel it is necessary in order to move forward with plans to evaluate the compensation of our staff and to consider plans to maintain the corporation’s hardworking and dedicated staff in the long-term. We sincerely appreciate all of the staff’s hard work and dedication over the years and hope that they understand this difficult decision,” she added.
Muña said that human resources will be working with the nursing director, hospital administrator, and resident directors to process a fair evaluation of all staff in the following months and salary increases will be determined by performance.
