Babauta lifts DPS’ austerity measures

Gov. Juan N. Babauta temporarily lifted yesterday the austerity measures at the Department of Public Safety to allow fire and police personnel to receive their much-awaited pay increase.

Babauta, when reached, said that the pay raise would be “commensurate to their ranks.”

A ranking official at the department said these personnel have actually been promoted since the last two years but they have not received the salary due them until now.

The official said Babauta decided to lift the austerity measure imposed on the department due to its current shortage in personnel and “morale problems.”

“The governor understands that problem so he issued this memorandum,” said the official who asked for anonymity.

The department is currently understaffed as many of its members are among the Army Reserve personnel who left last August for training in preparation for deployment to Iraq next year.

Babauta’s memorandum for DPS is “temporary” but it is “effective immediately.”

This came even as Babauta told other government agencies to continue with their austerity measures for Fiscal Year 2005 in the absence of a new budget passed by the Legislature.

In a memorandum issued to all department and activity heads on Oct. 1, Babauta said that the government will need to continue to operate under all provisions of Public Law 13-24, the last enacted budget law.

“Because of [the lack of a new budget law], we will need to operate under continuing resolution, once again, until a budget is passed by the Legislature and approved by me,” Babauta said.

The governor said he has directed the Office of Management and Budget to issue the FY 2005’s first quarter allotments to all departments and government agencies, based on the FY 2003 “to avoid any disruption in providing essential public services.”

Babauta also noted that the freeze on hiring new full-time employees remains in effect.

“Operating under FY 2003 funding levels puts us in the same predicament that we’ve had to deal with in the past two fiscal years, especially with regard to the shortfalls in public health, public safety, and utilities,” Babauta said.

“With this in mind and with an emphasis on the continuation of all austerity measures in place, it should be clear that every expenditure decision made must maintain the highest level of accountability,” he said. “This level of accountability should encourage departments to aggressively adhere to expenditure controls currently in place in order to meet their needs and stay within the given budget authority.”