GREAT BAY--Most St. Maarten Government ministries are operating with organizational structures and function books that have not been comprehensively reviewed since 2010, even as the country’s population increased by approximately 26 percent between 2011 and 2022 and demand for public services continued to grow.
Finance Minister Marinka Gumbs highlighted the issue during her presentation of the draft 2027 national budget to Parliament, placing the country’s persistent Government staffing shortages in a broader context than simply unfilled vacancies.
According to Gumbs, Government’s organizational capacity has not kept pace with the increase in the population and the corresponding demand for services.
The revelation raises a fundamental question about Government’s current staffing challenges: whether ministries are simply short of employees, or whether the structures determining how many positions ministries need, what those positions should be and how departments are organized are themselves overdue for comprehensive review.
Gumbs told Parliament that personnel expenditure remains the largest category in the 2027 budget at approximately XCG 288 million. The increase in personnel spending is being driven partly by Government’s intention to fill long-standing vacancies, particularly at the management level, where she said structural capacity constraints continue to affect Government’s ability to carry out its responsibilities and provide services to the public.
Importantly, Gumbs also said the personnel forecasts already take into account the filling of approved vacancies, along with existing obligations such as gratuities, bonuses and periodic salary increases.
But the staffing discussion goes beyond the number of vacant positions.
A Government organization designed around the circumstances of 2010 may not necessarily reflect the demands being placed on ministries more than 15 years later. St. Maarten has experienced population growth, technological change, increasing regulatory demands, major reconstruction, expanded social needs and growing expectations for digital Government services during that period.
Gumbs specifically contrasted the lack of comprehensive organizational reviews with the approximately 26 percent population increase recorded between 2011 and 2022. She said demand for Government services increased during that period while organizational capacity failed to grow at the same pace.
“As the demand for government services has increased, the organizational capacity of the Government has not kept pace,” Gumbs told Parliament in her budget presentation.
Her observation adds another layer to the staffing concerns MPs have repeatedly raised during the 2027 budget debate.
Several ministries have acknowledged significant personnel shortages, with MPs questioning whether Government can realistically execute ambitious policy programs, infrastructure projects, legislative work and service improvements while departments remain understaffed.
The issue now appears to be twofold.
Government has vacancies that need to be filled, but it may also have to determine whether the approved structures upon which those vacancies are based still accurately reflect what modern ministries require.
That distinction is significant.
Filling every position in an outdated organizational structure would not necessarily resolve all of Government’s capacity problems if the distribution of staff, management layers, technical positions and departmental responsibilities no longer match present-day needs.
The 2027 budget itself reflects Government’s recognition that additional institutional capacity is necessary. Gumbs said the increase in personnel expenditure is intended partly to address long-standing vacancies in critical areas where insufficient staffing affects execution and public service delivery.
The wider challenge is that reviewing ministry structures could potentially reveal that some departments need more positions, different positions or a reorganization of existing functions rather than simply recruitment into vacancies created under older structures.
Government’s move toward policy-based budgeting makes the issue particularly relevant. The 2027 budget requires ministries to identify policy objectives, activities and measurable results, placing greater emphasis on whether ministries actually have the institutional capacity to deliver what is being funded.
For Parliament, the organizational issue therefore provides additional context when examining vacancy numbers ministry by ministry.
A high vacancy figure can indicate recruitment difficulties, but it does not by itself establish whether a ministry’s approved establishment is large enough, properly configured or suited to current responsibilities.
Similarly, a ministry showing a relatively high percentage of filled positions may still face capacity shortages if its underlying organizational structure no longer reflects the work it is expected to perform.
Gumbs did not announce during her presentation a Government-wide deadline for completing comprehensive reviews of all ministry organizational structures and function books.
