Payroll and Wage Issues at New Beginnings Being Addressed

Questions were raised to the Minister of Human Development regarding low wages and reports of challenges in keeping up with payroll at New Beginnings. Thea Garcia-Ramirez says staff are being paid and efforts are underway to regularize workers who were previously on irregular contracts. While some new hires face brief delays in receiving their first paycheck, she maintains there are no ongoing problems. At the same time, the Ministry has addressed longstanding complaints about low wages, rolling out salary adjustments and reclassifications to ensure staff are fairly compensated.

 

Thea Garcia-Ramirez, Minister of Human Development

 “As far as I know, our staff are being paid and we are done with that. When new people come in, there’s maybe about a week or two while they get on the system, but that’s just basic administration. And I think that would be true for any organization where there’s a little bit of a lag for that first pay period. But, and we have gotten new staff, so perhaps that might be the issue there. But as far as I know, all staff are being paid.  Reclassification has happened for some of the positions and also some adjusting of salary scales. So all the positions are being are being revised. To see where adjustments can be made and reclassifications have affected some officers negatively. Those are being fixed now. In particular, now social workers through cabinet have been approved for some allowances that because of the reclassification, they just were not getting. So those are things that are coming online pretty soon.”