Salary hike OK’d for CPA employees

Airport and seaport employees will be getting a 5-percent salary increase starting this October—the first increment for Commonwealth Ports Authority employees in over four years.

The CPA board of directors approved the salary increase during a meeting yesterday, in view of the authority’s “improving” financial status.

CPA executive director Carlos Salas said the salary increase was a show of appreciation for sacrifices made by the employees over the past several years.

“The freeze on salary hikes produced a lot of savings for CPA over the years. The employees sacrificed a lot in the spirit of teamwork, and they should be rewarded for that,” Salas said.

Over the last four years, CPA employees have accepted cross-utilitization in duties, more responsibilities and an 8-hour reduction in working hours per bi-weekly period—without pay increases.

Salas said the increase will apply to all civil service CPA employees that have a performance rating of “satisfactory” or better.

According to Salas, most of CPA’s over 200 workers stand to receive a raise. “There are very few, if any, who have unsatisfactory performance ratings,” he said.

Salas and other CPA management officials, who are contract employees, are not covered by the salary increment.

The across-the-board salary hike is reflected in CPA’s budget for fiscal year 2005 budget, which appropriates $7.7 million for personnel expenses. This amount is 7 percent greater than the $7.2 million that CPA set aside for personnel costs in FY 2004.

In the FY 2005 budget, CPA also bared plans to restore the original contribution rate of 50 percent—instead of the reduced CPA rate of 25 percent only—toward employees’ health insurance premium, “should revenue comfortably exceed forecast and achieve the required debt service coverage ratio.”

CPA noted that before the 9/11 tragedy, the authority paid 50 percent of the employees’ premium but later greatly reduced it to 25 percent to generate significant savings to CPA.

“CPA management aims to review the entire revenue and expense situation at a six-month period interval for the possibility of restoring the original rate,” CPA said. “Other measures to be considered at a later time are: night differential, overtime pay, and contract employee salaries.”

The ports authority forecasts a growth rate of not more than 2 percent for the airport division and zero for the seaport division.

“While we anticipate recovery in the travel market, our budget forecast is at minimal [level] in order for us to easily meet our financial target,” CPA said.