The Lolo Administration is seeking advance support from the Interior Department’s Office of Insular Affairs for funding to implement ASG’s personnel system, to ensure, among other things, that employees are paid according to their credentials.

In a letter last month, Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga informed Esther Kia’aina, the new DOI Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas that financial support is needed from the federal agency to fund what he calls the realignment of ASG’s personnel system “to eliminate inequities caused by improper decisions rendered in the past causing morale and productivity challenges”.

Asked for more details of the project and examples of “inequities” the governor’s executive assistant Iulogologo Joseph Pereira explained that the inequities prompting the decision to overhaul the ASG Personnel System include the alignment of salaries with duties and responsibilities, educational credentials, and years of experience.

“Inefficiency and lack of productivity in government agencies due to morale challenges stem from new entrants making more money than veteran employees, and in some cases lacking the experience or educational credentials to perform the assigned tasks,” he pointed out.

“In other incidents, employees with educational credentials are not compensated according to personnel policies. This is more noticeable in the Department of Education,” he said.

Iulogologo said failures in the past to adhere to and be compliant with prevailing Human Resources statutes is the primary cause of the personnel system being "out of whack."

“This initiative attempts to forge compliance with the existing personnel laws, rules, regulations, and promulgated policies,” Iulogologo said. “These personnel imbalances and inequities also contribute to the uncontrolled cost of government.”

Asked about total funding the administration is seeking or plans to seek, Iulogologo said the original technical assistance request was in excess of $1 million, given the amount of work involved with the project.

However, the request was scaled downward to $500,000 with the bulk of the work performed internally by the staff of the Department of Human Resources, he said and pointed out that the technical assistance request was not among the projects approved by DOI last year.

He said the new grant request application is slated to be resubmitted soon to DOI/OIA for reconsideration so that the government can now move forward in this important project.