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More bad decisions
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Posted on Jul 11 2008
If Lt. Gov. Tim Villagomez is serious about making a run in 2009, someone needs to start advising him on some of his bad decision-making.
With our economy on the verge of collapse and our CNMI coffers high and dry, Tim gives 21 lawyers at the AG’s office a pay raise by exempting them from the salary cap. And who is at the top of the list? Matt Gregory, of course! I guess this is Matt’s reward for his outstanding service and commitment to our people! I don’t know about you, but Matt Gregory deserves a pay raise about as much as Governor Fitial deserves a “Great Leaders of the World” award.
And how do they try to justify it? By stating that the government lawyers are paid “lower than their U.S. counterparts.”
Tim, I am not sure if you are aware of this, but we have other government employees who are grossly underpaid. What about our hard-working CNMI nurses, who currently have to work their butts off up at CHC because there is only one nurse for every six patients? They are making considerably less than their counterparts in the U.S. And what about our police officers, who put their lives on the line each and every day? They are making about one-third the salary of their counterparts in the United States! And what about our teachers at PSS? How many of them have been waiting for their pay raises and have yet to receive them due to severe budget cuts?
This is a slap in the face of every nurse, police officer, teacher, and other more deserving government employees who work hard and put in a great deal of time and effort, yet don’t get proper compensation for it because the CNMI government is flat broke.
If this is the best you can do, I suggest you put aside your political ambitions and start thinking about launching a new career. If you want to win back our people’s confidence in you, start making carefully calculated decisions that will have a positive impact on all of our people instead of the chosen few.
[B]Ed Propst[/B] [I]Dandan, Saipan[/I]
