CSC works to update Civil Service compensation program

The Civil Service Commission is continuing to push for a new compensation plan to replace the current salary schedule and compensation statute. The commission is working with the Legislature and the administration of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres to finalize approval of the draft bill submitted in 2014 to the Legislature to update the current salary schedule for Commonwealth Government Civil Service employees. The current schedule was established by Public Law 7-31 in 1991.

Commission chair Herman Deleon Guerrero stated: “The Civil Service Commission has met recently with Governor Ralph Torres and separately with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ralph Demapan, Vice Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero, and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Representative Antonio Sablan on this matter. In each meeting we discussed the significance of this bill in bringing an obsolete pay schedule up to date and in modifying the overall compensation plan.”

Deleon Guerrero further said that the conversations with the governor and the speaker had been positive and he felt that action would be taken in the near future to finalize the bill into law. “Our current compensation program and salary schedule is 25 years old and is almost unusable. Immediate action must be taken on behalf of our deserving government employees. It’s long overdue. ”

“The commission is concerned with the current compensation stagnation of the government’s civil service employees. The current schedule is outdated, with the first 10 out of 35 pay levels unusable because they fall almost entirely below the current minimum wage. For reasons related to both employee welfare and the technical viability of the current statutory pay schedule, action needs to be taken to correct this situation,” he continued.

“The commission and the Office of Personnel Management worked together to prepare a draft bill, with a revised salary schedule included, that will revise the compensation program for the Commonwealth’s civil service employees to be more economically realistic and will introduce a new salary schedule that complies with the current and future federal minimum wage program. The commission submitted its proposed bill to the Legislature for its review and, we are urging their approval. At the same time, the Commission has been working with the governor to emphasize the need to finalize the bill and give the Commonwealth an updated compensation program.

“Since its reorganization in December 2012,” Deleon Guerrero stated, “the Civil Service Commission has been active in its representation of the Commonwealth’s Civil Service employees. Through its support of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), its efforts to resolve a backlog of personnel grievances and appeals, and its attempts to revise the current outdated compensation plan and restart the within-grade increase program, the commission has been seeking to improve the employment conditions for the Civil Service staff of the Government.”

Aside from Deleon Guerrero, the current members of the Civil Service Commission are Felicitas “Tee” P. Abraham, vice chairperson; Charles M. Calvo (Saipan), Arsene M. Borja (Tinian), Catalina L. Tebit (Saipan), and Valerie Q. Apatang (Rota), commissioners. (PR)