Arnaldo Cruz

Essays: Civil Service Reform

A New Data-Driven, Market-Based Compensation Philosophy and Salary Structure for Competitive, Fair, and Equitable Salaries in the Government of Puerto Rico” Date: March 27, 2023 Download essay In February, a new uniform salary structure was implemented which establishes the base salary for employees working in central government agencies. Since the implementation of the central government’s …

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Essay: Civil Service Reform: Methods and Practices

The Government of Puerto Rico and Oversight Board are working on a Civil Service Reform to build a more efficient, effective, and accountable government and creating an improved work experience for public sector employees. The reform program focuses on four strategic components: organizational design, compensation, recruitment, and employee evaluation. The first essay focuses on three …

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Essay: Towards a stronger civil service – Creating a culture of accountability in public sector performance

In this new policy essay, the Fiscal Oversight and Management Board’s Research and Policy Department looks at theories about employee motivation and public sector performance and identifies numerous nonmonetary mechanisms that can help reinforce strong government performance. Government officials have continued to focus mainly on salary increases to reform civil service and bolster improvements in …

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Essay: Statistical Analysis – Civil Service

Developing and nurturing a high-performing government workforce is vital to Puerto Rico’s future. To better understand the civil service’s current characteristics, the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico requested detailed information about government employees from the Office of the Administration and Transformation of Human Resources (OATRH), the government’s central personnel management agency. The …

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Essay: Federal Paycheck Protection Program

In Puerto Rico, more than 39,000 eligible entities have received financial relief through the Federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Back in June of 2020, the FOMB’s Research and Policy Department published an essay on the importance of small businesses to Puerto Rico’s economy and provided recommendations to the government on how to design a locally …

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Policy Paper: Civil Service Reform

In an effort to understand the current state of human resource management in the government, our Research and Policy Department developed a series of reports to help guide the Commonwealth in their human capital planning, implementation, and evaluation processes. This first report includes a thorough examination of the existing policy framework, which includes the evaluation …

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Essay: Improving Public Procurement in PR – Leveraging information and communication technologies to enhance transparency

Government procurement in Puerto Rico is responsible for some of the highest levels of spending in the economy. With that scale, complex and dysfunctional procurement can be eating up management time and money that could be better used elsewhere. The Commonwealth must modernize and improve its procurement systems to satisfy the citizens’ needs and safeguard …

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Essay: Rethinking Government, a new Commonwealth-Muni partnership

Given the challenges of the central government and the fiscal sustainability of many municipal governments, this might be the best chance Puerto Rico has to truly transform the entire government structure. Author: Arnaldo Cruz, FOMB’s Director of Research and Policy Overview The proliferation of departments, public corporations, and agencies in Puerto Rico has severely hindered …

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Essay: Small Businesses and COVID-19 – How to target CARES funds to meet the needs of SMEs during this time

While being major players of the economy, many small businesses are unable to weather a crisis like the one caused by COVID-19. Very small businesses, particularly those operating on small profit margins, are especially vulnerable, since they may not have the cash reserves and typically have fewer ways to access financing. Authors: Olivier Perrinjaquet & …

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Essay: Public Health and COVID-19 – Weak Public Health Infrastructure Hinders our ability to respond to this and Future outbreaks

Modernizing Puerto Rico’s public health surveillance systems should be a top priority.  Author: Arnaldo Cruz, FOMB’s Director of the Research and Policy Dept. As Puerto Rico moves towards re-opening the economy, the Government should do whatever it can to avoid or reduce the causes and effects of a second wave of infections by developing smart …

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