July 31, 2007 — Routine hirings no longer go through the governor’s office for approval, the territory’s personnel director told senators at a budget hearing in Frederiksted Monday.
Kenneth L. Hermon Jr., director of the Division of Personnel, showed the Legislature the new government hiring practice authorized by Gov. John P. deJongh Jr., officially known as a notice of personnel action (NOPA). In a shift from long practice in the Virgin Islands, the new process takes the governor’s office out of the routine loop for regular, classified government positions.
Most positions are now handled between the human resources people in each department and Personnel. Exempt positions still go to the governor, and then through the same process as hires for classified positions.
“In August the executive order to transfer signatory responsibility from the governor to the director of personnel will be adopted,” Hermon said. It would have happened earlier, but Hermon said he requested 90 days to work the kinks out of the new system before implementation.
Money is on the way for retirees who left government service after being promised pay raises but before those long-delayed raises began to be paid, Hermon said.
“The division has identified a population of almost 900 retirees who are owed retro(active) payments,” he said. “And we have developed a game plan on how these calculations will be determined.”
The two phases of his division’s plan for payment should be completed in eight to 10 months, Hermon said.
“I know to those retirees that have been waiting for almost 15 years this time frame may seem too long to wait, but I must assure you that your wait is almost over,” he said.
Some of the senators questioned Hermon about the large number of chronically vacant positions in most government departments, agencies and divisions. Sen. James Weber asked Hermon about the 1,500 total vacancies reported to the Legislature by all agencies. Hermon responded that the number he has is closer to 700. “So you are telling me the numbers we are dealing with are unreal?” Weber asked.
“As relates to unfilled vacancies, yes,” Hermon replied, explaining further that Personnel only counts funded vacant positions and not unfunded positions.
Sen. Terrence “Positive” Nelson suggested the government uses empty but funded positions as a kind of slush fund, routinely coming back to the Legislature to have money set aside for salaries redirected to other purposes.
“That personnel-vacancy issue, that is where the departments hide their reserves,” Nelson said.
“At the end of the year, they come for appropriation transfers because the amount of vacancies are saving them money.”
Salary funds for vacant positions go to pay accumulated vacation and sick leave for employees who retire or leave government, Hermon said.
“In the States, they generally pay a percentage into a fund for this purpose,” he said. “Here we don’t do that; we pay out of vacancies and hope to God there won’t be two people leaving at the same time.”
“That’s a good point,” Nelson said. “We don’t make allowances in the budget for when people are separated.”
Nelson and Hermon both said relying on the funding for vacant positions was untenable, and a formal mechanism should be put in place.
The governor’s budget recommendation for Personnel is $3.95 million in General Fund appropriations. By law that budget includes funding for the Office of Collective Bargaining, but in practice the two operate independently. Taken by itself, Personnel’s share of the General Fund budget request is $3.24 million. Adding in nearly $400,000 from the Internal Revenue matching fund and the indirect cost fund brings the Personnel budget to $3.6 million.
Tuesday’s hearing was preliminary. The Senate will vote on the budget in upcoming hearings.
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