ST. CROIX — About 100 government employees did not receive their government paychecks on Thursday, but\u00a0Finance Commissioner Valdamier Collens assured that the situation would be remedied by today.<\/p>\n
That’s according to a press release issued by Senator Kenneth Gittens’ office, with the senator stating that he was “disappointed” by the government’s failure to meet its obligation of paying employees, even while being encouraged that Mr. Collens said the situation would soon be rectified.<\/p>\n
\u201cThursday evening, I was advised by several employees from various department\u2019s including the\u00a0Department of Labor that they were not paid,” Mr. Gittens said. “I contacted Labor Commissioner Catherine Hendry\u00a0who stated that she was aware and her staff is working on the problem. I further reached out to\u00a0Finance Commissioner Collens who assured me that his staff has been working with respective\u00a0agencies to make sure that the affected employees from various departments would be paid\u00a0sooner than later.”<\/p>\n
The second-term Democrat added that it was not immediately known exactly how many employees were affected,\u00a0but the number seems to be close to 100.<\/p>\n
As for Mr. Collens, the commissioner was adamant that the\u00a0nonpayment was not a result of lack of government funds to meet payroll obligations. He said\u00a0the agencies with affected employees were required to update their “employee job salary\u00a0record” and had not done so.<\/p>\n
Senator Gittens said he implored each agency head to stay on top of their respective payroll staff\u00a0in order to meet the Finance Department’s Friday 11:00 a.m. deadline for a special midday check\u00a0run that had been scheduled.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at this situation, time was of the essence to ensure that the deadline is met, especially\u00a0in light of the long weekend as the territory observes David Hamilton Jackson Day, which is also\u00a0known as Liberty Day. My heart goes out to those who were not paid Thursday and I am thanking\u00a0Commissioner Collens and his staff for being sensitive to the situations and always being\u00a0responsive when called upon.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Feature Image: Finance Commissioner\u00a0Valdamier Collens\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Image Credit: Government House.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ST. CROIX — About 100 government employees did not receive their government paychecks on Thursday, but\u00a0Finance Commissioner Valdamier Collens assured that the situation would be remedied by today. That’s according to a press release issued by Senator Kenneth Gittens’ office, with the senator stating that he was “disappointed” by the government’s failure to meet its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[228,11,191,2474,147],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n