By The Star Staff
The Financial Oversight and Management Board has given the Office of the Administration and Transformation of Human Resources and the Office of Management and Budget until Sept. 16 to turn over information on employee transactions to determine if they align with Civil Service Reform (CSR).
The request, made in an Aug. 30 letter, comes amid media reports that agencies are trying to make “at will” employees loyal to the current New Progressive Party government into career workers, making their removal by the administration elected in November very difficult.
The oversight board began developing CSR in 2022 with a pilot plan at some agencies as it sought ways to improve salaries, change employee evaluations, and standardize the recruitment process.
The board’s letter to Zahira Maldonado Molina, executive director of the Office of the Administration and Transformation of Human Resources, and to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Juan C. Blanco Urrutia, notes that the federal oversight entity has made deliberate, strategic investments in a comprehensive CSR to enhance governance and operational capacity across all agencies, aiming to strengthen and improve government effectiveness.
“The CSR is essential to ensuring that the Government has a strong civil service based on merit, competence, and achievement,” the letter notes.
The oversight board asked the agencies to submit, no later than Sept. 16, information and documents related to employee transactions conducted since Jan. 1 of this year. They include a list of all the positions in the agencies, corporations, departments, administrations, boards, commissions, bureaus, offices, divisions, and instrumentalities of the Government of Puerto Rico that have been created, occupied or reclassified since Jan. 1, along with the assigned salary for the position, “and indicate whether the salary is the minimum or 90% of the midpoint of the salary grade.”
The petition also included a list of all personnel transactions made in connection with any of the positions and a list of all positions within the categories of Interagency Coordinator (Coordinador Interagencial) and Government Executive Officer (Oficial Ejecutivo Gubernamental).
The board said the information will allow it to assess how recent government hires align with the current approval processes of the Office of Administration and Transformation of Human Resources and the OMB, and the process the government is implementing under CSR.
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