GFD places hiring of new recruits on hold

by Nick Delgado

Guam - With a hiring freeze in effect its placed the Guam Fire Department's plans to start a new cycle on hold. But despite the delay, those applying for a job with GFD who are already employed with GovGuam are asked to resign from their GovGuam job and hold on to hope that one day they'll be hired if and when the cycle starts.

Funding that rolled over from the previous fiscal year allowed for GFD to conduct the hiring process for thirty fire recruits. GFD Acting Chief Joey San Nicolas said, "We've gone through the written and physical testing and 30 have been selected…twenty-four new government employees and six other that are current GovGuam employees."

It's those six that are being told through the Department of Administration that they would have to step down from their government positions before proceeding with the cycle. "To me, there's something wrong here," said GFD's oversight chair, Senator Adolpho Palacios. He said he too has heard about the frustration from these six fire recruits, noting, "A parent of one of the candidate who is currently employed with the Government of Guam actually brought this to my attention on two issues, first that they would have to resign so that they can be hired, but then they are not guaranteed to be retained after the training…to resign completely from GovGuam and then to reenter that's weird I cannot understand, if that's the current law we should fix that up." 

However, DOA oversight chair Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz agrees with the suggestion made by DOA, saying, "When you switch positions depending on what the long range indications are, you may need to take a salary cut in order to be able to move into a position, become permanent and then move up that silo…similar in nature that they could do it laterally otherwise you couldn't take your salary at $30 an hour in your position and be the only recruit out of 30. That's getting $30 an hour and then the rest of your cohorts are only getting $12."

But Palacios feels the problem needs to be resolved or, "For sure there will be an issue, an issue that will result in this government again paying up for misjudgment or misinterpretation of the statue," he said.

Of note is that during GFD's budget hearings earlier this year lawmakers suggested the hiring be done in phases.