Governor provides context on the July 1 wage hike for ASG

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Gov. Lemanu Peleti Mauga is commending the public for their continued patience and support as the ASG workforce endured the recent rollback phase of the Cost Saving Measures of Personnel Actions.

In a press release issued yesterday, he addressed issues around  the ASG General Wage increase, effective yesterday, July 1, 2021 — following a cabinet meeting this past Friday.

 “Wage increases have been a long-standing goal for every Administration, and I wanted to make sure that a couple of issues were addressed during the planning stages. One, can we commit to this increase and secondly, is there a comprehensive plan to sustain such an increase. I believe it is time to recognize the service of our people, and in turn improve the service to the public. 

“In order to implement these changes, we needed to efficiently and legally assess the personnel structure and ensure it is aligned with the Administration's overall goal of now raising the pay for most, if not all, ASG career service employees,” explained Governor Lemanu following Friday’s cabinet meeting where the pay increases were presented to the Administration.

Within the Administration’s first 5 months of his term, the release pointed out that the Governor appointed a Compliance Review Committee (CRC) that was tasked to review “all expenses related to COVID-19 as well as all government and employment actions from January 1, 2019.”  The CRC would “implement corrective actions to ensure financial stability of our government.”

“I had originally asked the CRC to carry out their due diligence in making it their priority to serve and to take care of the people of American Samoa. Especially realigning pay with years of experience, and updating the pay scales, to reflect a raise for everyone effective as soon as possible. The details of how these raises will be discussed at a later time. But I commend the CRC for taking on this task and making it a reality,” stated Governor Lemanu.

According to the press release, the General Wage increase was expected to go into effect, yesterday, July 1st, while DOE Wage increases are retroactive back to May 1st, 2021. And it said employees should begin seeing changes to their wages beginning July 16th.

The Administration also is taking into consideration the increased cost of living, which has gone up exponentially over the years with little to no increase in workers’ salaries. This makes it challenging for families to sustain a healthy and viable economic lifestyle. 

And in the same vein, Gov. Lemanu and Lt. Gov. Talauega Eleasalo Va’alele Ale also want to remind the public to

1)      Please support local businesses and to “Buy Local.”

2)      Wage increases will demand more responsibility and expectations of improving the quality of government services to the people of the Territory.

In a meeting on June 23, 2021 with Fono leaders, President of the Senate Tuaolo Manaia Fruean and House Speaker Savali Talavou Ale were presented with the Administration’s plans for the pay increase.

The Fono leaders’ concerns were wanting to understand how the increase would be funded and can ASG sustain this raise in the future. They also suggested looking at how this raise would affect the private sector.

Funding for all increases this upcoming quarter will come from the Office of the Governor’s Special Programs fund and the ASDOE FY21 budget. The FY22 proposed budget will include the plan to sustain the teachers’ wage increase with a combination of Local and Grant funds as well as budgeting the Governor’s Special Programs money to sustain the General Wage increase.

(Source: Governor’s Office press release)