Senate Looks into Employment Rates and Social Security Checks

After learning that there have been more than 300 resignations within the government over the past fiscal year, Sen. Marvin A. Blyden was dismayed to learn from Personnel Director Cindy Richardson that there was no clear explanation why.

“I just provided the information that was for the entire fiscal year. The exit interview does not happen at the level of the Division of Personnel — it happens with the respective agency,” Richardson said in response to questions from Blyden during Tuesday’s Budget and Appropriations Committee meeting.

Calling for a more in-depth analysis, Blyden noted that there’s also been a decrease in employees in the construction field, which he said he expected to “be more lucrative.”

“Without recovery efforts, we expect these to go up. While the information was submitted by the Bureau of Economic Research, the time period for the report was from the fiscal year 2020 to 2022. I am hoping that once these come online, they will go up,” Finance Commissioner Bosede Bruce responded, joining Richardson and other financial team members for the hearing.

Sen. Kenneth L. Gittens also expressed his concerns with the number of hires, vacancies and resignations within the territory and said, “We need to do better with these funny numbers. We only hired only four people last year.”

Richardson, giving a more in-depth explanation of the number, said that every promotion and rehire counts as a vacancy being filled for the system’s algorithm.

Responding to concerns added by Sen. Samuel Carrión about the completion of 1,205 Notices of Personnel Action (NOPAs) out of 5,903 processed, Richardson added that there have been over 2,800 salary changes, along with NOPAs processed to include miscellaneous military leave, military leave without pay, change in titles, and deceased pay that all make up the remainder.