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Hart: NMC staffing down to 160 FTEs
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Posted on Jun 19 2012
By Moneth Deposa
Reporter
Reporter
Northern Marianas College recorded a significant decline in its personnel after its implementation of a series of cost-cutting initiatives last year all aimed to reduce the college’s expenses.
From 198 full-time employees two years ago, NMC’s staffing dropped to 175 last November and now only total 160 FTEs. The figures are based on the records of the college obtained by Saipan Tribune yesterday.
In an interview last week with NMC president Sharon Y. Hart, she revealed that some positions remain frozen, while other slots were posted internally within the organization such as the vacant faculty positions.
NMC has two types of employees: staff and faculty members who were either serving in 10-month or 12-month contracts.
Hart described this approach as a “fair balancing act” within the organization after they found out, based on the college peer analysis, that NMC has more staff than faculty members who are providing instruction to students. This area is vital in the accreditation which usually requires a mixed of full-time and adjunct faculty members within the organization.
“When it comes to faculty and staff, we’re lopsided. We seem to have more staff than our peers with similar size. This means, in faculty number, we’re under,” Hart admitted to Saipan Tribune.
In recognizing this concern, NMC is now filling faculty positions with those qualified staff members who apply for the slots. She pointed out that in the internal posting of jobs, minimum qualifications, and requirements apply to all applicants.
As of Friday, NMC records show that five faculty positions have been internally announced of which one has been filled already. The other four positions are in the interview process mostly scheduled for this week.
Hart said that besides the positions internally announced, NMC is also seeking outside applicants for slots that they deem hard to fill within the organization. One of them is an instructor for nursing program.
According to the president, efforts in revisiting all positions at the college gear toward the budget processing for this fiscal year, which NMC was only allocated $5.1 million for personnel and operations.
