Jobs of 15 MVA employees may be saved

With a 17-0 vote, the House of Representatives yesterday passed a bill reprogramming $206,396.34 from the Marianas Visitors Authority’s operations budget to its personnel appropriation, a move that could save the job of 15 of 35 current MVA employees.

Floor amendments to House Bill 16-243 changed the reprogrammed amount from $172,240.323 to $206,396.34.

MVA managing director Perry Tenorio, during yesterday’s session, told House members that the agency will cut costs in non-personnel expenditures to cope with the impact of the reprogramming of funds to personnel appropriations.

He said without the reprogramming, MVA stands to lose 15 employees.

The bill now goes to the Senate.

Tenorio said members of the Senate he spoke to are receptive to the idea of reprogramming funds within the MVA budget to save employee jobs.

“We’re not asking for money from outside; this is just to work within our appropriation,” he said.

Rep. Victor Hocog, during the session, said he’s disappointed that the furlough notices caused MVA employees to bug him in the middle of the night asking for help to save their jobs.

But Rep. Diego Benavente said constituents have reasons to ask for their representatives for help.

Last month, Tenorio issued a notice to its 35 employees of a reduction in force effective June 1 in order to stay within the funding level for the rest of the fiscal year.

A reduction in force could mean a cut in work hours, long-term furloughs, reduction in staff and elimination of functions.

Yesterday, Tenorio said the reprogramming of $206,396.34 will ensure all 35 employees will have a 40-hour workweek.

H.B. 16-243, introduced by Rep. Ray Yumul, says MVA’s personnel cost for Fiscal Year 2009 is about $1.16 million. However, Public Law 16-32 or the budget law appropriated $955,597 for MVA’s personnel costs, creating a shortfall.

The bill says if funds are not reprogrammed, MVA would have to reduce its work hours.

Public services, according to the bill, would seriously be hampered by MVA’s proposed drastic reduction in hours.

MVA is one of the latest government agencies considering ways to cut costs.

The Fitial administration earlier said thousands of government employees could be furloughed in order to stay within the $156.76 million budget without cost-reductions measures, including unpaid holidays and austerity Fridays. Gov. Benigno Fitial has since said he plans on using approximately $8 million from federal stimulus funds to cover any deficit in payroll costs for the rest of the fiscal year.