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System upgrade delays issuance of hospital’s housing perks
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Posted on Apr 24 2012
By Moneth Deposa
Reporter
Reporter
Employees of the Commonwealth Health Center were disappointed when they failed to receive last Friday the promised one-month payment of their housing allowance.
But Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. board chair Joaquin Torres assured yesterday that the promised payment will still be provided today, April 24.
The delay in the deposits, he said, was due to the ongoing system upgrade being enforced at the corporation’s financial system which affected the transfer of the funds to employees’ accounts. He described the cause of delay as purely “technical” and had already been addressed yesterday.
“But surely, it will come out tomorrow [today] because that’s the latest information I got from the management. It was delayed due to the upgrading of the system that we are doing at present,” Torres told Saipan Tribune yesterday afternoon.
The housing benefit of hospital employees has been delayed for five months since December, which caused the disappointments of many affected personnel.
According to Torres, when the corporation petitioned nonresident employees for contract workers’ visa, or CW, their contract still stipulated the aforementioned housing assistance, but with a clause that it will “depend on the availability of funds,” which means anytime, it can be terminated at all by their employer.
The chairman said the corporation board and the chief executive officer are expected to make a determination on this benefit in its future meetings.
In a presentation last week, corporation CEO Juan N. Babauta disclosed that each month, a total of $134,000 is being paid to housing perks of employees who were hired outside of the Commonwealth. Since the time of the public health department, single employee who was hired from off-island is provided $600 monthly housing allowance while $800 for those with families.
Because of the scarce financial situation of the corporation, which has only $5 million seed money this fiscal year, its management and board are looking into the following options: terminating, suspending, or cutting this benefit by half.
