Mapp On Promised 1,000 Jobs: ‘There Are New Hires Weekly, But It’s A Work In Progress’

ST. CROIX — Governor Mapp explained to VI Consortium a mere week before the 2014 General Elections how he planned on employing 1,000 people in 2015.

These jobs include, according to Mapp, the recruitment of 250 new police officers; 550 teachers, administrators and support staff; 75 correction officers; 125 nurses, EMTs, revenue agents and other frontline classified government employees.

Six months into the year, however, and much hasn’t been said about the 1,000 new hires, so VI Consortium asked the governor at a Wednesday press conference at Government House in Christiansted for a progress report.

“There are new hires, I could say, weekly,” Mapp began. “But given what we’ve found and given the lack of use of technology in the government, we’ve had to reformat much of the system.”

The territory’s leader said his administration is concentrating on the issue of security and safety in the law enforcement community. He also highlighted the efforts at the Juan Luis Hospital to keep the facility in good standing with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), stating that “much of the crisis has been abated,” and revealed that they’re in the process of rectifying the problems at the SeaView Nursing Home and Rehab Center that has lost CMS certification over reports of negligence, abuse and other deficiencies.

“We’ve brought on more teachers and revived the senior citizens program. We are promoting folks to assistant principal and principal positions but what is the count, I can’t tell you that,” the chief executive added.

The governor went on, making known that while he intends to keep his promise, “we’re not just going to hire people to say we would hire a thousand, and in five months, here are the thousand jobs.” Instead, Mapp said he would work to make sure that the positions are occupied by persons with the necessary criteria.

The governor also revealed that there are a number of vacancies in various departments and agencies since October 2014, “so it gives us an opportunity to begin to talk about a summer program of eight weeks of employment for some of our college students and some of our high school graduates.”

The territory’s leader said he will be asking commissioners for a list of their needs in relation to digitizing documents and dealing with backlog in the system. Once that is achieved, the administration will embark upon an annual summer program for the islands’ youth.

“We’re focused, if you will, really on the big picture, and we will achieve our targets — and it some respects we may exceed them, but it’s a work in progress,” he concluded.