‘Why complain now when they were silent before?’

Since 1998 up to the present, only the Washington lobbyists have obtained legislative approval for receiving salaries in excess of the ceilings set by law.

Office of Personnel Management Director Juan I. Tenorio underscored this point yesterday, saying that all other government employees receiving wages in excess of the salary caps from 1998 to the present never received any such legislative sanction.

This comes soon after the House of Representative told Gov. Juan N. Babauta that it would not sanction any certification for salaries beyond the statutory caps until requirements under the law are complied with.

The Office of the Public Auditor has identified 18 employees in the current administration who are receiving salaries higher than the cap but have not complied with the mandatory requirements of the law.

Tenorio said he is not aware as to what Babauta plans to do next with regards to the salary caps, saying he leaves it up to the Governor to make the decisions on this matter.

“I think I have done my work. I did a research covering the period from 1998 to date on those government employees that have received salaries above the caps and whether or not they were sanctioned. My findings is that there has been only one group whose salaries were above the salary cap and were sanctioned by the Legislature and that was the Washington lobbyists,” he said. “All other employees of the government never did.”

Tenorio said this prompts him to ask the question: “If the Legislature was silent on the issue back then, why are they so vocal right now? Why are they now making all this noise, considering that previous employees who were being compensated above the salary cap were receiving up to $130,000 per annum.”

He stressed that it was the Legislatures’ responsibility to look at all of this and put it into better perspective as mandated by law. “Unfortunately, they failed.”

He described the current standoff between the Babauta administration and the 13th House of Representatives as “unfortunate,” particularly since a number of lawmakers in the current legislature were members of previous legislatures.

According to the OPA report, the 1984 Compensation Adjustment Act and Public Law 11-41 requires that, for employees to receive salaries in excess of the salary caps, they should be certified to the Legislature.

There are, however, two different certification procedures under the law. For employees who fall within the classification of 1 CMC Section 8248 (b), such as doctors, engineers and architects, all that is required is for the Governor to simply certify the excess salary to the Legislature and the Civil Service Commission.

For the other employees who exceed the salary caps, they fall under 1 CMC Section 8250 (c) and the certification must contain language that says that, “after despite diligent effort, the Commonwealth is unable to recruit a…qualified person to take the appointed position.”