Manderson says raises are promotions not pay hikes
(CNS): The chief officer in the Portfolio of Internal and External Affairs has said the recent increase in earnings by a number of civil servants is as a result of promotions and not pay hikes. Speaking to the Cayman27 news team on Thursday, Franz Manderson said an article in the country’s local daily newspaper was wrong as the earning upgrades were down to changes in the job descriptions of public servants who took on more work, as well as new promotions. He said that two Caymanians who had completed training were promoted to permanent jobs and that was why they were given 18% increases, despite government’s earnings freeze.
He explained that people who had worked hard and completed their training and were confirmed in a new post could not be kept on the same level of earnings as they were before they had completed that training.
Manderson also revealed that others were given a 12 percent increase because they were taking on more work to prevent the need for extra staff. Manderson said that had they not done so the government would have had to employ more people costing the public purse some $90,000 more per annum.
Manderson said he was disappointed by the Caymanian Compass’ call for his dismissal over the article, which said civil servants in the portfolio had received “whopping pay rises” as a result of information the paper received via an FOI request.
In a letter to the paper’s editor Manderson expressed his concern that he was not given an opportunity to explain the reason for the pay increases and accused the paper of "convicting him without trial" after it suggested his "head should roll". Manderson said the goal of the portfolio was to continue reducing costs by retraining and increasing the responsibilities of existing civil servants to avoid the need for more staff.
"In keeping with Portfolio’s Strategic Plan, these types of initiatives are utilized in order to prioritize succession planning for Caymanians and promote the effective use of resources," Manderson wrote. "At the end of this exercise we were able to increase the services provided to the public without increasing personnel costs.In fact in 10/11 we reduced the department’s total budgeted personnel costs compared to the 9/10 budget year."
He said that he was not ignoring the efforts of the elected government to balance the budget, as stated in the paper’s editorial, but was in fact following the mandate of government by providing opportunities for the professional development of Caymanians and reducing expenditure.
Category: Local News
So what we have established so far from this thread is that Kevin, Robert and Victoria were three of the lucky recipients.
Honestly, how could anyone take anything to be FACTS that comes out of the Caymanian Compass.
Can anyone ever please the Caymanians on this island?
If the salary increase was not given and these CAYMANIANS started to complain or some simple minded person caught wind that they were now more qualified for the position but were still receiving the same pay. You all would choose to say “Mr Manderson is not looking out for his own BUT I bet if it were and expatriate in their position they would get a pay rise without question” thus resulting in another scandal.
There is no reason for this pay rise to be such a huge issue – you all fail to look beyond the exaggerated headline “Whopping pay raises” and the number “18%” that seems SOOOO HUGE – when if youreally break down the figures – was honestly not much.
You all have caught wind with something that was never properly investigated into and something that was wrongly printed in the Caymanian Compass .. this was brought to the public’s attention in a misinformative and negative manner and that is the only reason everyone has chosen to badger and look for fault in Mr. Manderson’s actions.
Caymanians and anyone else residing in the Cayman Islands, we need to stop being so simple minded and look beyond what is put in front of you and see the bigger picture.
Stop allowing others to influence your actions and words because it seems easier to beat up on someone than take some time and properly UNDERSTAND the facts.
A lot of you are saying you would have worked continuously without the increase in pay because you know how hard times are, but honestly me and you both know that is a bunch of BS.
If anyone had informed you that you were entitled to an increase in pay after training you would have made damn sure you got it.
Mr. Manderson has ALWAYS been a highly respected individual within our community. This out burst is merely people seeing something that is not actually in exsistance. An unnecessary chance to scandalize his name and all the creditability he has built up over the 26+ years of working within the Cayman Islands government.
Mr Manderson, you continue to hold your head up and stand by your decision. You are and exceptional and idolized Caymanian Civil Servant. Never forget that.
Myself along with thousands of others support AND understand why you choose to make the decisions you do.
I agree with you about Mr. Manderson. He has a great deal of integrity and has worked honestly to get where he is. The problem as such seems to be a matter of the Compass wanting to play catch up with CNS and sensationalizing in the process.
Also one of bad optics as far as some civil servants are concerned.
They have taken a pay cut while others received raises but arguably some were overpaid to begin with.
Young educated Caymanians should be willing to work for the government for several years at low pay.
It’s like serving in the military for 2 to 5 yeears.
Do they really love their country? Or are they following McKeeva’s example?
This Government sucks big time! I know allot of civil servants that are doing a whole lot more than what they are suppose to be doing. What did they receive, salary cuts! Some even more than 3.2%. Hey Franz why don’t you fume about how your government totally destroyed the little man to protect all those gargantuan salaries in management, FOI anyone?
People of the Cayman Islands trust me this sort of exploitation goes on throughout government. Big Mac why don’t you disperse that review team to scrutinize the real reason why the people of Grand Cayman are being raped of their little earnings? Starting with you sir.
Perhaps Mr. Manderson could also explain why a lady was brought from Florida to direct the Cayman Brac clean-up? Surly someone in Cayman Brac is able to fill that post. In addition this person is housed in a hotel and provided with a rental car
Perhaps Mr. Manderson is not the one who can answer that question. You know who is in charge of everything Cayman Brac. If this really happened someone should have to answer.
As someone who knows the lady in question and has seen how she works both last year and this year, I would suggest there are three reasons that she was given the position:
1) She has Cayman status and has been intimately involved with many of the people and businesses on this island for 33 years..
2) She is not related to anyone on the Brac and can therefore treat everyone fairly (which she does) and so avoid the nepotism that is rife throughout this small island.
3) She has the necessary man management, project management and accounting skills necessary for the position
If you want to add a fourth reason (in my mind the most important), she did an excellent job last year without any other agenda than completing the challenge set to the best of her ability. You obviously have had no dealings with her or you would know that she is a woman who knows her own mind and has a strong personality with a lot of integrity – and incidentally she is not staying in a hotel whilst on island.
As always in small communities ‘if they don’t know it by coffee, they’ll make it up by tea’.
The increases we know about so far have been in two portfolios both of which are under the control of the deputy governor. The deputy governor is responsible for the civil service. He was also responsible for directing the civil service on the salary cuts needed to meet the grave budget situation. To now see that staff under his two portfolios recieved salary regrading and increases at the time when his instructions to all and sundry were to cut, could be seen as disengenuious or perhaps even favouring his departments. Remember the deputy governor and one of his portfolios is the authority to whom other government deptartments must go to on bended knee for their own salary and personnel requests. This makes the actions appear even worse. The next thing that comes to mind is the fact that there are many deserving of similar consideration. It is only fair that all civil servants who take on more and more work and increase their qualifications now be given equal consideration by the deputy governor.
"DO AS I SAY BUT DON"T DO AS I DO". This what these gentlemen are doing. They take people for idiots by throwing the proverbal "wool over their faces". I wonder how many other departments practising this kind of deceptiveness on the public. Think about cutting salaries cutting personell and doing the very opposite in their department.
Wow – I know that in my job I would have to do a whole lot more than complete some training to get this kind of pay increase.
I also had no choice but had to take on more work as they have laid-off some members in my time in a year where the entire staff did not get one cent of pay increase.
The hidden message we got was "it is what it is, be happy that you have a job at all". Mind you, I am sure that my bosses, and my bosses bosses did very well with their usual bonuses whilst the rest of us got shafted with the work and were told times are rough.
Same BS anywhere, so Franz, please spare us of this lame excuse of yours.
Apparently you got caught up in the hype of the Caymanian Compass sensational headline. "Whopping pay raises" and "18% is all that caught your eye. Would you be surprised to learn that as trainees, they earned $1,600 and a pay raise of 18% put their pay to $1,888? Still think it is a whopping pay raise? Their CUC bill is $500 per month, not to mention rent, food, etc. The Caymanian Compass’ job is to sell newspapers and obviously not interested in true investigative journalism they got the the answer to the question they asked per the FOI but they didn’t actually dig deeper to determine what was truly going on.
Great work Franz you have always been a model civil servant. To all the negative persons out there, please tell me what you expected Franz to do?
Keep the two Caymanians on the trainee grade forever? That sounds sensible??
Increase the size of the civil service by taking on the two higher paid persons as opposed to merging their duties with the duties of existing Staff and save money??
Come on folks some of you must see the logic in this- I know its friday and someone of you are jealous but come on!!
Great work Franz you have always been a model civil servant. To all those negative and selfish persons out there what exactly did you want Franz to do? Keep the two Caymanians at the trainee grade forever?? or worse yet keep them on the trainee grade and make them perform the duties of the substantive post without an increase in salary?
I guess the easy way out would have beento just increase the size of the Civil Service by employing the two extra persons rather than merging the jobs.
Thank you Franz for being brave and doing right thing- some of us are very proud of you.
Total BS just give the rest of the Civil Servants there 3.2% back also.
If you knew the difference between "there" and "their" I would consider it.
The fact remains that Franz was in a position to know that the paycuts were coming and were inevitable. Time to backtrack and try to cover up the things that we all know have been going on from when Noah was a boy.
Makes sense to me. I think this is a very rational approach and should be adopted throughout the civil service. What Mr. Manderson did was to improve efficiency whilst cutting costs. Exactly what we have been demanding civil service to do.
I am apalled at the Caymanian Compass for the sensational headline. The editorial was uncalled for and I believe that an apology from the Compass to Mr. Manderson is called for!
Mr. Manderson, during times of cut backs we all must do more for less in the private sector. Perhaps instead of immediate pay raises,a probation period should be used to see if the paid for training was value for money.
If a plumber comes to your house, do you pay for the job prior to the start of it?
Also $90,000 per annum…..what is the total cost of the raises per annum?
I would venture probably $90,000 per annum!!!
First of all, let’s be happy for those DESERVING who have someone to help them.
Secondly, not all of us in the private sector do more for less. Like Government, there are some being rewarded and there are those who are not. Some are rewarded at the end of training and rightly so, but some are not – even though deserving.
You pay the plumber at the end of the job! Not these days. Most want 50% up front. Anyway, this situation does not compare to your one-visit by the plumber. If deserving people completed their training, their performance improved or excelled and their Caymanian boss rewarded them, I applaud him and I am happy for them. If more Caymanians treated their fellow Caymanians fairly, we wouldn’t be in dire straits now, right at the bottom of the barrel – being kept down by some of our fellow Caymanians who prefer to help an expat because they don’t want to see their own prosper.
Your anger should be vented towards those who took from you, not towards Franz just because he helped someone. Was he in a position to help you? Just because we suffer, should we want others to suffer? Definitely not. Put your energy towards trying to help you and your fellow Caymanian NOT towards trying to take from someone or hating to see someone being helped! This is the mindset leading to our detriment: "If I can’t get it, I don’t want you to get it".
Let’s not be like that one who hated nature and his neighbours because he lost his roof during Ivan but his neighbours didn’t lose their roof or like the colleagues of the guy whose boss gave him a promotion but their bosses did nothing for them. They spat fire at their colleague and his boss instead of at their bosses.
Be happy for those who are DESERVING and whose boss helps them. Try to do something about those bosses or others who take from you and don’t treat you fairly. This would be energy used wisely. WAY TO GO. BE BRAVE AND KIND.
This blatant double standard is completely demoralizing to all honest and hard working civil servant. Every day we see more and more examples of cronyism and the undeserving, but politically connected, receiving perks or 18% pay raises. The rest of us have not had a raise in over 5 years and instead saw our salaries cut by 3% earlier this year. Shame on you Franz! At your level you should stand up for the higher principles of service before self and set an example for all.
If you see the names of these "lucky" recipients of payraise, then you will understand our concerns.
Shame on the Compass for not carrying out a proper investigation. What Mr. Manderson did should be a model for others to follow- promote Caymanians and reduce overall costs- how can this possibly be a bad thing?
What double standard? This is a prime example for service before self. The easy thing to do was todo nothing and let the civil service grow!!
These Staff got the 3% cut like everyone else!! they got a promotion and did more work and was rewarded- what is wrong with this???
Sorry, I cannot believe Mr Manderson, would expect people to really think he was doing this out of concern for Caymanian employees, all of us took the salary reduction in stride and in addition have taken on more work due to the hiring freeze required by the govt…. we did not get a regrading to make up for the loss of income…it seems that our leaders in these lofty positions still and continue to be believe everyone below them are ignorant to the facts presented to them…..if he is so concerned about Caymanians… give back the 3.2% reduction back to the real workers, the GRUNTS’s who are on the firing line everyday
Franz is correct and the Compass story was sensationalist (never mind the Rooster style editorial!). There is no ban on promotions in the civil service; stop and think about that for a minute, it would be absurd. What other reward is there for training civil servant Caymanians? All training is to come to a shuddering halt? When I passed my night school prof exams whilst in the private sector my wage doubled – it’s called an incentive and a reward.
But the civil service does itself no favours. All those ads for highly paid senior Immig Officers; requires a degree (naturally) OR 5 years on the job experience (..oh dear). The many relatively unskilled overpaid administrative Stat Auth/civil servants with nothing to do but Mac wont allow them to be released because they voters; its not them who leave and arent allowed to be replaced. Yet thosewho show willing, go the extra mile, train and deserve promotion get hammered when they rewarded? Well, it sells newspapers I suppose
You promoted them because they completedSOME training?? Not even earning qualifications? How about civil servant who ALREADY completed trainings in the past and already earned their qualifications? Dont they deserve a "promotion" as well?
There is nothing wrong promoting staff but giving them 18% increase while the other civil servants got a 3.25% pay cut is not right. I think it is unfair.