MVA: Exempt us from wage cuts

The Marianas Visitors Authority has asked the Fitial administration for exemption from possible wage cuts.

During the MVA board meeting Wednesday, the MVA management said it sent a letter to Finance Secretary Eloy Inos, outlining its concerns about the proposed 10-percent reduction.

MVA has also asked Inos for exemption from the proposed employee work-hour reduction. This plan, however, has already been abandoned by the Fitial administration, citing difficulty in implementation.

Instead, the administration asked the Legislature to introduce legislation to implement a 10-percent salary cut among government employees.

This measure, House Bill 15-115, was recently introduced by Rep. Absalon Waki Jr. and four other House leadership members.

The bill states to reduce by 10 percent the salaries set forth in Title 1, Section 8213 of the Commonwealth Code, which lists the salary schedules for civil service employees.

The bill said that the salary reduction “is necessary to prevent further deterioration in the Commonwealth’s financial situation, and hopefully prevent a reduction in the government workforce.”

In a March 14, 2006, letter to Inos, MVA acting managing director Tess Castro said that MVA has its own way of reducing personnel costs.

“As an autonomous agency, the MVA is accountable for its own personnel obligations,” she said.

She also said that the MVA has identified a way to reduce personnel costs “by not filling our current employment vacancies.”

Castro said this translates to $137,047 savings for the remaining part of fiscal year 2006.

She said that, with the continuing downtrend in tourist arrivals, “MVA needs to be more aggressive and creative in its marketing and promotional efforts.”

MVA has repeatedly said that it cannot afford further budget reductions in view of its huge task to get more tourists to the CNMI.

MVA said it only has a $5.6 million working budget for this fiscal year. It is expected to aggressively market the CNMI abroad to ensure that the islands receive a million tourists by 2008.

As of last year, there were over 500,000 tourists who visited the Northern Mariana Islands.

This even as the Fitial administration reduced the government’s annual budget from $213 million to $198.5 million in view of projected reduced revenues this year.

To do this, the administration, through the Office of Management and Budget, cut the budget of all government agencies, including the MVA, to meet the reduced budget.

MVA said it OMB asked it to cut its budget by $1.1 million.

On Wednesday, MVA board chair Jerry Tan said the authority could only cut some $300,000. Tan said that the MVA could not sacrifice its advertising funds if it is serious in attracting more tourists.

He cited that MVA is already outspent several times over by its counterparts in Guam and Hawaii in terms of advertising abroad.