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VI UPDATE U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS 07-27-22 Committee on Finance Legislature USVI July 27, 2022 · 3.5 hours · gov Source recording https://youtu.be/NSdVMs_6J10 Status This is a working transcript produced by machine from a recording of a public proceeding. It is a finding aid, not an official record of the Legislature. Transcribed by VI Update, using OpenAI Whisper large-v3-turbo, run locally. Not reviewed by a person. Reliability Automatic transcription, UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording before relying on it. Speech recognition splits spoken digits and wraps figures mid-number, so a dollar amount, a vote count or a bill number can be wrong in a way that reads as correct. Speakers are not identified: automatic speaker labelling was measured unusable and removed. Public record The underlying proceeding is a public record of the Legislature of the Virgin Islands. 3 V.I.C. § 881(a) defines public records to include all records and documents of or belonging to this Territory or any branch of government, or any "department, board, council or committee of any branch of government" · which names legislative committees by category. § 881(b) gives every citizen the right to examine and copy such records, and the news media the right to publish them. (The open-meetings chapter, 1 V.I.C. § 254, does NOT reach the Legislature: § 253(b) expressly excludes it and its Standing and Special Committees. § 881 does, and it is § 881 that confers the right to copy and publish.) The Legislature broadcast this proceeding publicly itself. The source recording is not ours, is not hosted here, and remains with its publisher at the link above. Rights To what we added · the transcription, its arrangement and its description · we assert nothing. A verbatim transcript is mechanical rather than authored, so there is likely nothing in it to own; to the extent any copyright is nonetheless found to subsist, it is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. Please copy it, quote it, index it, train on it, republish it, mirror it, sell it. Redistribution is the point: a public record with one copy is one fire from gone. No permission is needed, and none is ours to grant or withhold. I Thank you. 0:00:00 Thank you. Thank you. 0:01:00 ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. 0:02:00 Lilo, la, la, lelo, te lo dai Lilo, la, la, lelo, te lo dai Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ 0:03:29 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, my God. 0:05:29 do so Thank you. 0:07:59 Thank you. Oh Thank you. [2 such phrases repeated 11 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 0:09:29 Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 0:15:29 Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 0:18:29 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 0:21:59 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 0:23:29 Thank you. . 0:24:59 We'll be right back. Thank you. 0:25:59 Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you. 0:26:59 so Thank you. 0:28:29 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 1 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance Thank you. All right. Thank you. 0:29:29 Thank you. Here we go. 0:30:59 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 0:31:59 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. 0:34:59 We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ 0:37:58 ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. 0:39:51 Thank you. [1 such phrases repeated 13 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 0:40:57 Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ Li-lo-la-la-de-lo-de-lo-dai Li-lo-la-la-de-lo-de-lo-dai 0:47:27 Thank you. Thank you. Ly-lo-la-la, ly-lo-le-lo-la, ly-lo-la-la-le-lo-la. Oyame. 0:50:26 Thank you. Thank you. so Thank you. 0:51:56 Thank you. Here we go. 0:53:56 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 0:54:56 Thank you. Oh, my God. [2 such phrases repeated 8 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 0:56:26 Thank you. The committee have... 1:00:26 That's it. That's it. One, two. That's it. That's it. That's it, one, two. That's it, one, two. That's it. The Committee of Finance is here by call to Ada. Madam Clerk, can I have a roll call, please? Senator Marvin A. Blyden. Senator Blyden, present. 1:01:07 Senator Samuel Carrion. Senator Carrion, absent. Senator Dwayne M. DeGraff. Senator DeGraff, absent. Senator Donna A. Fred Gregory. Senator Fred Gregory, absent. Senator Javon E. James Senior. Senator James Senior, absent. Senator Janelle K. Ceroux. Senator Ceroux, absent. Senator Kurt A. Vialet. Here. 1:01:39 Senator Vialet, present. Mr. Chair, you have two present, five absent. Thank you, Madam Clerk, any correspondence? Yes, Mr. Chair. You may proceed. Correspondence dated July 27th, 2022. Honorable Kurt Viallee, Chairperson, Committee on Finance, Legislature of the Virgin Islands, 3022, Estate Golden Rock, Christianstead St. Croix, Virgin Islands. Dear Chairperson Viale, please accept this letter as a formal notice of my late arrival to today's Committee on Finance meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. in the Earl B. Otley Conference Room on St. Thomas. Please have all circulated documents placed on my desk for immediate review upon my arrival. Thank you for your consideration in this matter. Kindest regards, Donna Fred Gregory, President, 34th Legislature of the Virgin Islands. please mark senator donna fred gregory as tardy and please mark senator carry on as present let me get the count mr chair you have three present three absent one tardy thank you Thank you, Madam Clerk, I'd also like to recognize Senator Bulquist. Thank you for attending the Committee of Finance meeting, your first Committee of Finance meeting. One more. Please mark Senator DeGraff as present. 1:02:17 Do you have any more correspondence, Madam Clerk? Yes, Mr. Chair. You may proceed. Correspondence dated July 27, 2022. Kurt A. Viale, Committee on Finance, 34th Legislature of the Virgin Islands, Capital Building, Charlotte Amali, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Dear Chairman Viale, this letter serves to inform you that I will be tardy to the Committee on Finance meeting scheduled for Wednesday, July 27, 2022 in the Earl B. Otley Legislative Hall in St. Thomas. I do apologize for any inconvenience, and I look forward to participating in the discussion upon my arrival. Thank you in advance for your understanding. Respectfully submitted, Janelle K. Saro. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Please mark Senator Saro as tardy and Senator Jim Van James as present. 1:03:59 Mr. Chair, you have five present, two tardy. Thank you. You may proceed and read the agenda into the record. the committee on finance fiscal year 2023 budget hearing for wednesday july 27 2022 at 9 00 a.m in the earl b ottley legislative hall charlotte amali saint thomas u.s virgin islands the committee on finance will receive testimony on the proposed fiscal year 2023 executive budget for the government of the virgin islands of the united states at 9 a.m the office of the lieutenant governor invited testifiers monica williams carbone esquire chief of staff at 12 30 p.m the virgin islands economic development authority invited testifiers wayne biggs jr chief executive officer And at 2 p.m., the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority invited testifiers, Andrew Smith, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Chair, this concludes the reading of today's agenda. Thank you, Madam Clerk. 1:04:52 Good morning to the people of the Virgin Islands. Good morning, colleagues. Good morning to the testifiers. First, before us is the office of the Lieutenant Governor. I'm going to allow them to put their name and title on the record, beginning 1:06:09 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 2 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance with Attorney Cabot. One second, the Committee of Finance will take a two-minute recess. Thank you. Thank you. The Committee of Finance is back on the record. You may proceed and place your name and title on the record. 1:07:11 Good morning. I am Monica Williams-Carbon, Chief of Staff for the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. Thank you. Next. Good morning. Claudette Farrington, Director of Business and Financial Management, Office of the Lieutenant governor good morning attorney Glendina Matthew interim director division of banking insurance and financial regulation officer lieutenant governor good morning Ira Mills tax assessor office of the lieutenant governor do it again and get closer to the mic please good morning my name is Ira Mills a tax Assessor within the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. Dole Smeclean, General Counsel, Office of the Lieutenant Governor. 1:07:52 Thank you. We have a number of individuals who are participating virtually, so I'll go with the top screen with the two individuals. who's on the top attorney come on miss c porsha pierre and miss shalma moorhead okay so can you miss moorhead can you guys proceed and put your name and title on the record Good morning, everyone. My name is C. Portia Pierre, Recorder of Deeds for the District of St. Croix. 1:08:51 Good morning, Shalma Moorhead, Assistant Tax Assessor, Office of the Lieutenant Governor. Thank you. I'm seeing Ms. Akhoy. Ms. Barbara Akhoy, can you put your name and title on the record? Okay, I'll come back to Mr. McCoy, Mr. McKay, or Mackay on St. Croix. Mr. McKay. 1:09:39 Good morning, Lance McKay, MIS Director, Office of the Lieutenant WF. Unmute your device. Yes, Lance McKay. Okay, I'm still not hearing you. Your device is muted. how about now is that better uh mr mackay unmute your device he says yeah how about now still not hearing me okay now i'm hearing you go ahead okay great uh good morning lance mckay ms director officer of the lieutenant governor okay thank you good morning barbara acoy district supervisor passport office st croix okay thank you i need to get an office to you miss acoy i see that you're outside yes i'm i apologize i am i'm only i'm joking i'm joking don't worry about it oh we'll discuss that another time i know mrs acoy well cycle battle her up at the conference room the individuals in the conference room good morning charlie charleston interim assistant director office of the lieutenant governor division of banking insurance and financial regulation Next. 1:10:22 Good morning. Lark Bedminster, Assistant Director, Office of the Lieutenant. Next. Good morning. Kishwa Dorset District. I'm with St. John. Passport. Okay. Those who are virtual, whenever you ask a question, please get as close to the device as possible, and you can just take your mask off when you are speaking. So we have some other individuals in the back that might be. You just want to call the name and the title? 1:12:05 Yes, we have Mr. Brent Lairdham, he's the tax collector for the office of the Lieutenant Governor. So I think that he is going to be needed to answer questions. So Mr. Lairdham, if you can come and sit right over here to the left. And who else do we have? We have Ms. Denise Johannes, she's the Director of the Division of Corporations and Trademarks. We have Mr. Chris George, he's the Administrator for the Geospatial Information Systems Program or Division. 1:12:46 I have Ms. Shani Pinney, she is the Director of the VI Ship Medicare Program. And Ms. Erica Dover, she is the Recorder of Deeds for the District of St. Thomas, St. I know we're going to need you, so come up, please. And you can take a seat right over here to the right. And Ms. Johannes, more than likely, trademark and cooperation. You collect money, so we're going to have some questions for you, so come. And you can go and sit in Senator Carrion's spot, Ms. Yohannes. Okay, this is quite a bit of a testimony, so while they're getting situated, Attorney Cabo, we're going to allow you to proceed and put the testimony on the record. 1:13:20 Good morning, Committee Chairman, Honorable Kurt A. Viale and Honorable Members of the 34th Legislature of the Virgin Islands Committee on Finance, other Senators present today, as well as the viewing and listening audiences. I am Monica Williams-Carbon, Chief of Staff for the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, which is under the leadership of the Honorable Tregenza A. Roach Esquire, Lieutenant Governor of the United States Virgin Islands. I most respectfully appear before you today on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Roach to present to you the summary of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor's Fiscal Year 2023 budget request which includes all of the divisions and subdivisions under the statutory jurisdiction and supervision of the lieutenant governor. Today I am accompanied at the testifiers table by Miss Claudette Farrington, Director of Business and Financial Management, Attorney Glendina Matthew, Acting Director of the Division of Banking, Insurance and Financial Regulations, Mr. 1:14:25 Ira Mills the tax assessor and attorney Dulles McLean PhD legal counsel to the lieutenant governor and general counsel to the office of the lieutenant governor behind me in the gallery are also mr. Brent Lairdham I'm sorry he's also on the not to the testifiers table but to my right mr. Brent Lairdham tax collector as well as miss Denise Johannes director of the division of corporations and trademarks, and to my left, Ms. Erica Dover, District Director of the Division of Recorder of Deeds for the St. Thomas St. John District. 1:15:37 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 3 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance Behind me in the gallery is Mr. Chris George, Geospatial Information Systems Administrator, and Ms. Shani Pinney, Director of the VI Ship Medicare Program. I am also accompanied by virtual means by Ms. Cheryl Charleswell, Acting Assistant Director of the Division of Banking, Insurance and Financial Regulation, Ms. Shalma Moorhead, Assistant Tax Assessor, Ms. Laura Bedminster, Assistant Director of the Division of Corporations and Trademarks, Ms. C. Portia Peer, District Director of the Division of Recorder of Deeds for the St. Croix District, Mr. Lance McKay, Director of Management Information Systems, Ms. Barbara Akhoy, Supervisor of the Passport Facility for the St. Croix District, and Ms. Kishma Dorset, Supervisor of the Passport Facility for the St. Thomas St. John District. As I come before you today to report on the status of the divisions within the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, I ask you to take note of two significant facts regarding this office. First, many of the divisions within the Office of the Lieutenant Governor are collectively a major source of revenue for the government of the Virgin Islands. The Division of Real Property Tax, standing alone, makes LGO the second largest revenue-generating government agency in the territory. Revenues collected benefit every member of this community by providing funding for social services such as health and education, and to maintain and improve public infrastructure such as roads. Second, the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, through its many divisions, provides essential services to the people of this territory, including but not limited to 1:16:19 the licensing, regulation, and registration of businesses that fall within the jurisdiction of the office, the recording of and access to critical land ownership documents and information, the collection of and provision of access to geodetic data used by public and private entities for providing emergency and other services, the processing of passports facilitating travel around the world, consumer protection services, and education, counseling, and outreach services. As always, today I will provide you with a brief overview of the fiscal year 2022 accomplishments for each division, but I will also provide LGO's assessment of the challenges faced by LGO and where LGO needs to be in order to maintain its operations by not only continuing to perform its many statutory duties and responsibilities as it has been doing, but by being able to perform these statutory duties and responsibilities more effectively, efficiently, and in a way that is consistent with the world we live in today. What has LGO accomplished thus far during fiscal year 2022? I must always on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Roach publicly commend the very dedicated, experienced, qualified, and competent staff of all the divisions within LGO for their hard work and sacrifices that play a vital role in LGO's ability to meet its statutory mandates. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the members of the staff continued to serve 1:18:14 the Virgin Islands community and to generate revenues for this government. Stress levels were high for customers, but they were also high for the staff because we all live in this community, and everyone navigated and continues to navigate through these unprecedented and trying times. Moreover, the accomplishments of each LGO division were achieved despite the fact that, like many other government entities, many divisions have been operating with inadequate staff and have been faced with the harsh reality that in today's economy, locating and attracting qualified individuals to perform certain duties and responsibilities has been an almost insurmountable challenge. This challenge negatively impacts LGO's ability to engage in succession planning for the future of LGO's divisions. Notwithstanding, LGO's divisions engaged in several noteworthy activities and were able to achieve some significant accomplishments in fiscal year 2022. The Division of Banking, Insurance and Financial Regulations is tasked with carrying out three significant legislative mandates. One, to license banks, mortgage lenders and brokers, insurance companies and their agents and representatives, all securities and investment agents and brokers and investment products, and other financial services entities and related service providers that conduct business in the territory and that play a critical role in the territory's economy, two, to regulate these licensed entities to ensure that they are in compliance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, and three, to serve as a consumer protection agency by receiving and investigating complaints filed by consumers against licensed 1:20:02 and regulated entities. The Division also generates a significant amount of revenues for the government of the Virgin Islands through its collection of premium taxes from insurance companies doing business in the territory, licensing fees from banks and insurance companies and other entities that are under the Division's purview, securities registration fees, and fines collected from all licensed entities that fail to comply with Virgin Islands law. I note that this Division has made several attempts to attract an individual health care provider for the Territory to help meet the needs of the uninsured population. Meetings have been had recently with an insurer that expressed an interest in making individual health care available. They have submitted an application which is currently under review by the Division, and we are hopeful that all requirements will be met and we will be able to make an official announcement in the near future. LGO commends the very dedicated, qualified, and competent staff of the Division who, despite the many challenges, accomplished the following during fiscal year 2022. They achieved a full five-year accreditation status from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, known as NAIC. This signifies the NAIC's recognition that the territory has adopted the NAIC's model laws rules and regulations and policies that are necessary to conduct efficient and effective financial solvency regulatory oversight which includes conducting financial examinations and analyses over licensed 1:22:01 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 4 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance insurance companies and as evidenced in the work of the division staff the division that the division is applying those laws, rules, regulations, and policies in a manner that other U.S. states and territories can rely on their professional work. The Division participated in legislative sessions to discuss the overall state of banking in the territory, including the ability to obtain credit and the effect of global economic trends and rising interest rates on the Virgin Islands economy. They provided testimony before the legislature on bills covering the following topics. One, the codification of new surplus lines' diligent search requirements. Two, the establishment of a Virgin Islands Port Authority self-insurance program to manage the authority's risks. 3, the amendment of Titles 13 and 22 of the Virgin Islands Code to replace the term international insurer with the term captive insurer and to provide a definition for the term captive insurer. 1:24:14 4, the amendment of the Credit for Reinsurance Act, which is one of the NAIC's model laws. And 5, the codification of the requirement for a searchable online unclaimed property database. The Division also created and issued a bulletin that provides guidance to persons and businesses seeking licensure as a money transmitter, and a bulletin that states the position of the Virgin Islands Banking Board on the regulation of cryptocurrency services in the Territory. They coordinated Banking Board meetings, which included presentations by the Territory's licensed local banks and the Economic Development Bank regarding the state of the bank report covering each bank's operations for year-end December 2021 and discussions on banking products and services available to customers in the territory. They conducted several financial examinations including a full-scope examination of Elan Insurance Group, the examination of TOPA Insurance Group and Dorchester Insurance Company Limited, which were coordinated with the California Department of Insurance, and the examinations of Mapfree Preco Insurance Company and Mapfree Life Insurance Company, which were coordinated with the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance of Puerto Rico. The division continued to mediate consumer complaints against insurance banking and other financial institutions and to process claims for unclaimed property they prepared and distributed public educational materials on bitcoins also known as virtual currencies and on surplus lines requirements these materials can be 1:25:02 found on the Division's webpage, accessed through LGO's website at ltg.gov.vi. They performed outreach and education services through participation in cultural food fairs on the island of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John, in coordination with VITEMA and other divisions within the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. And they participated for the first time in the risk-focused financial analysis peer review project established by the NAIC to improve the financial analysis skills of the staff of insurance departments across the United States. In the context of insurance, financial analyses is the process by which qualified persons conduct an assessment of the sustainability and stability of insurance companies and it is a critical part of financial solvency regulation the recorder of deeds division is managed by the recorder of deeds in each district who are responsible for recording and filing every deed of transfer of real property or interest therein and every mortgage or other security for debt that is secured by real property including contracts, local and federal liens, releases of mortgages, and other legal instruments relating to the transfer of title and encumbrances on all real property. The information collected and recorded is used to maintain legal, reliable, and accurate records of real property ownership in the Virgin Islands and this recording of ownership information sets the foundation for the property tax assessment and collection process. As a means of protecting ownership rights, all documents evidencing ownership of real property in the territory should be recorded with this division. This division also generates revenue for the government of the Virgin Islands through 1:26:58 its collection of stamp tax fees. Despite many challenges caused by COVID-19, computer breaches, and inadequate staffing, the dedicated, experienced, and hard-working staff of this division achieved the following accomplishments for fiscal year 2022. They collected more than $16 million in stamp taxes thus far, and they completed negotiations to make e-recording available to users of the co-file system who conduct transactions with the division on a regular basis. This service will allow these users to record documents from the convenience of their home or office. Without this e-recording capability, users who need to record documents from multiple transactions on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis would be required to visit the office. The Division of Real Property Tax, comprised of the Office of the Tax Assessor and the Office of the Tax Collector, is tasked with assessing the value of real property in the territory and using the values assessed to collect real property taxes as the second largest revenue generating source for the territory included within the office of the tax assessor is the cadastral unit which is tasked with attesting deeds and archiving imaging indexing and maintaining cadastral maps evidencing surveyed myths and boundaries for all real property in the territory property in the territory cannot be bought or sold without a deed that is attested by the 1:29:10 the Territorial Public Surveyor, and filed and recorded with the Office of the Recorder of Deeds. We publicly commend the staff of the Division of Real Property Tax, who with limited staff, but with an enduring commitment to serve the members of the Virgin Islands community, continue to serve the members of the public during the pandemic. We are 1:30:56 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 5 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance pleased to announce that the Office of the Tax Assessor implemented a new computer-assisted Mass Appraisal System to manage the assessment process. That office has also created an application that would make it possible for members of the public to apply for homestead exemptions and change their address online. These functionalities will be implemented shortly. Additionally, in 2022, the Division of Real Property Tax obtained a new vendor for its billing and collection processes and has launched a citizen access portal allowing members of the virgin islands community to conduct business with the division from their home or office we are in the process of finalizing capabilities of the system to accept online payments once fully functional this system will improve the services provided by the division including the establishment of installment payment agreements the issuance of tax status reports on properties and the issuance of tax clearance certificates it will also enhance the collection of property taxes by allowing for compilation of accurate data regarding paid and outstanding property tax amounts despite the delay in accepting online payments we are already receiving positive feedback regarding how much customers are able to accomplish that they were unable to accomplish prior to this new portal going online. Specifically, persons have commented on the ability to search for properties, view the tax payment status of a property, verify ownership of a property, and conduct sales comparative searches to discover the sale price for properties sold in a particular area. The Division of Geospatial Information Systems, under the supervision of an administrator, is responsible for providing the critical geospatial backbone for the territory by collecting 1:31:43 and storing geodetic data. Geodetic data is used to represent the exact position of locations on the earth, and it is a necessary part of any technology that is based on spatial locations such as navigation and surveying. This division created an intra-government geospatial information system platform which has been and continues to be used for numerous infrastructure projects and for sharing critical geodetic data with other public and private entities that provide critical and emergency services to all members of this community. The capabilities of the GIS platform have positioned the territory through the Office of the Lieutenant Governor as a Caribbean Region Leader in the field of geospatial information systems in government infrastructure. The data compiled by this division is so reliable and useful that it has been used by the Federal Emergency Management agency, FEMA, to correctly identify Virgin Islands property in relation to their flood zone program. 1:33:33 The division is currently awaiting the go-ahead to complete the final phase of the street addressing initiative which was initiated in 2012 and will culminate with the creation of a master address repository for the territory, improving the services provided to the members of this community by first responders and other entities that provide emergency services with a very small staff the geospatial information systems division was able to accomplish the following in fiscal year 2022 they received recognition by google as the authoritative source for usvi digital mapping data they were awarded the 2021 exemplary systems in Government Award by the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association known as URISA. 1:34:46 This award is the highest global recognition of GIS utilization in government. The Division is now the official mapping data source in the territory for all the major players in navigation technology, including Google Maps, Apple Maps, OpenStreetMap, TomTom, and ESRI, which is the Environmental Systems Research Institute. The Division was awarded the Recognition of Support and Service Award by the Virgin Islands Police Department's Office of Highway Safety for its dedication to providing quality mapping data and analytical capability towards the efforts of improving overall traffic safety in the territory. The Division continued to provide assistance to various Virgin Islands communities and homeowners associations in naming streets in their neighborhoods and worked with VI the VI Housing Finance Authority and the VI Housing Authority to name the roads in their communities as a part of the street addressing initiative they continue to update us VI road and estate data on the global open street map platform which is the basis for all global mapping engines including Google map Google Google Apple Maps TomTom and Esri the division continued to host the GIS divisions public GIS data viewer which can be accessed at usvi.mapgeo mapgeo.io which is the most comprehensive website for Virgin Islands land data and and most widely utilized government website totaling more than 7 000 unique viewers per month and the division continued to maintain the division status with the u.s census world 1:35:40 topographic map and open source library as the official source for critical usvi gis land and road data in the territory. The Division of Corporations and Trademarks registers business entities including corporations, limited liability companies, general partnerships, limited partnerships, and limited liability partnerships doing business in the territory. While this division does not grant trademarks, it maintains a database of federally registered trademarks that are on file with the United States Patents and Trademarks Office. It also generates revenue through the collection of registration and filing fees and franchise taxes. Thanks to the hard work of the very dedicated, knowledgeable, experienced, and qualified staff of this division and the capabilities of the division's online catalyst system, throughout fiscal year 2022 the division continued to service the business community and to generate revenues for the territory increasing its collections by 20 1:37:40 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 6 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance percent over its fiscal year 2021 collections the vi ship medicare program encompasses two programs one One, the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, also known as SHIP, S-H-I-P, managed on the national level by the Administration for Community Living, ACL, Office of Healthcare Information Counseling, and two, the Medicare Program, administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Both programs are managed on the local level by the staff of the VI SHIP Medicare Office, whose primary duties are to educate and counsel Medicare beneficiaries about the services that are available to them under the two programs and to assist the beneficiaries in making informed decisions regarding important health insurance and health care issues. Throughout fiscal year 2022, the small but very dedicated and competent staff of the VI SHIP Medicare program continued to be the local Medicare source for beneficiaries by providing education and counseling on Medicare and its available plans and services and delivered guidance on how to enroll in Medicare and assisting beneficiaries with troubleshooting and billing questions and submitting appeals. It spearheaded a radio public service announcement campaign informing Medicare beneficiaries of the available preventive and wellness services. It conducted outreach in person for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic at the 2022 Cultural Food Fair on St. Thomas and the 50th annual agriculture and food fair agri-fest on st croix and it was recently awarded funding from the ship program to offer mental health awareness seminars for the beneficiaries in the territory particularly those with mental health needs emanating from the covet 19 pandemic stay tuned for these seminars which will be scheduled in the near future the virgin islands passport Acceptance Facilities are the local agencies designated to issue U.S. passports in the Territory. While these facilities do not establish the requirements for obtaining passports, they are authorized to accept, on behalf of the United States Department of State Passport Services, all applications for passports. We commend the small but very dedicated, knowledgeable, and committed staff of the passport facilities who despite the many challenges continue to provide services which would otherwise require persons to travel outside of the territory to obtain a passport. These facilities also generate revenue for the territory through collection 1:39:32 of the fees associated with each passport application. The Division of Business and financial management plays a critical role in ensuring that LGO is able to perform its many statutory functions as it serves as the nucleus of all financial activities for the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. It provides budgetary support and oversees the day-to-day financial procurement for all divisions within the Office of the Lieutenant Governor to include facilitating the procurement of supplies and services and centralizing the maintenance of all personnel, time and attendance activity and financial records. It is also responsible for the overall collection of revenues with the direct oversight of a cashier services and for general maintenance and custodial services at the various locations of LGO. We commend the staff of the Division of Business and Financial Management for their hard work, work, commitment, and dedication to ensuring that all LGO divisions have the necessary resources to meet their many and varied statutory obligations. In fiscal year 2022, the staff of this division deposited and reported on revenues collected for all divisions of LGO for the benefit of the entire territory to the tune of $62.2 million as of June 2022. It created and submitted LGO's Fiscal Years 2023 and 2024 budget to the Office of Management and Budget, which will allow LGO to continue its operations and responded to information requests pertinent to the financial audit for the Government of the Virgin Islands. 1:42:00 It initiated the relocation of LGO offices on the island of St. Croix. Despite the challenges in locating and attracting qualified individuals, the division continued to process job vacancies in neo-gov for positions advertised on governmentjobs.com and posted ads for vacancies that we have been unable to fill. This division was successful in assisting the GIS division in hiring a GIS analyst and in interviewing for hire a GIS technician who is scheduled to begin shortly. Both persons will be working with the GIS Division's Administrator to complete the final phase of the Street Addressing Initiative. The Division of Business and Financial Management was also successful in assisting the VI Ship Medicare program in adding two part-time counselors to its staff and replacing a full-time Medicare Service Technician on St. Croix to assist with its education, outreach, and counseling services provided to Medicare beneficiaries. And the Division collaborated with representatives from the Office of Disaster Recovery, the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency regarding renovations and reconstruction projects for LGO locations that were damaged as a result of the 2017 hurricanes. These projects should be moving forward in the near future. The Division of Management Information System, as the name denotes, provides system management, diagnostic support, and maintenance for the computer and technology systems for all divisions within the office of the Lieutenant Governor. This division works with remote vendors contracted by LGO to create and maintain 1:43:52 local systems for the provision of services to the members of the Virgin Islands community. This division's role in automating the services offered by LGO has made it possible for the office of the Lieutenant Governor to enhance its revenue generating capabilities and the services provided by each division. In fiscal year 2022, the very qualified, competent, and experienced staff of the MIS Division completed the virtualization of internal service system services for 1:45:51 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 7 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance LGO, assisted in the transition to and the implementation of the new citizen access portal for the Division of Real Property Tax, fully implemented network monitoring, detection, reporting and response management tools for better protection against malicious online attacks such as ransomware implemented redundant data backup systems to assist with exponential recovery in the event of data breaches thereby improving cyber security for lgo offices and the government of the virgin islands upgraded desktop and phone hardware software resulting in better end user experience and productivity, and initiated OneDrive implementation for LGO's data backup and better space allotments for LGO staff. The Legal Division, though not a formally recognized division within the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, plays a critical role in the day-to-day operations of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. Specifically, Legal Counsel, as well as other attorneys throughout the other LGO divisions, draft contracts and other legal documents and legislation needed for the efficient operations of all LGO divisions. Legal Counsel also works with the Virgin Islands Department of Justice to bring resolution to various matters affecting both LGO and the Government of the the Virgin Islands. The Legal Division also oversees the Notary Division, which is responsible for regulating and monitoring notarial acts performed by persons appointed and commissioned by the Lieutenant Governor to administer oaths and affirmations in the territory, ensuring that these individuals comply with all applicable laws while acting as public servants. Additionally, the Notary Division processes apostilles and certificates of authentication requests. In fiscal year 2022, Legal Counsel worked with the 34th Legislature to create and enact the Virgin Islands Uniform Law and Notarial Acts, which codifies the policies and procedures for licensing and regulating notaries in the territory. 1:47:51 This legislation will ensure the integrity of documents that are critical to commercial and legal transactions in the territory. Where is LGO now? As reported in previous budget testimonies, it has been a priority of Lt. Governor Roach that the office of the Lt. Governor regain and maintain public confidence in the ability of the Government of the Virgin Islands to carry out its statutorily mandated duties and responsibilities. In order to regain and maintain this public confidence, LGO is committed to being transparent, efficient, consistent, and reliable in its provision of services to the members of the Virgin Islands community and in the collection of needed revenues for the Government of the Virgin Islands. The world as we know it today is not the world we lived in 20, 10, or even 5 years ago. 1:48:50 The COVID-19 pandemic taught us this lesson. We cannot expect to continue conducting business as usual. People are finding new ways of generating income outside of the conventional workplace environment and with advancements in technology, computer system breaches have become more prevalent. Yet, there are services that require human intervention, and we are more reliant on computer systems to improve services and the customer experience. In light of the foregoing, there are many challenges faced by LGO which, if not addressed now, will have far-reaching impact on LGO's operations. Despite the fiscal year 2022 accomplishment, LGO realizes that it needs to up its game, so to speak in order to not only continue to provide services and generate revenue but to enhance those services and increase revenue generation lgo has determined that there are four major challenges that we must overcome in order to do this lgo has begun to address some of these challenges which include one staff shortages wherein lgo has been unable to attract new employees and seasoned and experienced employees have retired or are approaching retirement. Some employees have also resigned. 1:49:49 Some divisions have been unable to attract qualified staff in positions that require specialized skills and or education. One division for which we have been experiencing challenges in attracting qualified individuals is the Division of Banking, Insurance, and Financial Regulation. Individuals educated and skilled in the field of accounting are desperately needed for the Division to continue to perform its regulatory functions, including reviewing financial statements, conducting financial examinations, and performing risk analyses to ensure that insurance companies and other regulated companies are in compliance with our laws and are maintaining financial stability to continue operations and avoid insolvency. 1:51:20 These staff shortages have also caused delays in the provision of services and in the completion of some job functions, particularly in the Recorder of Deeds Division, the Real Property Tax Division, and the Division of Banking, Insurance and Financial Regulations. staff shortages are due in large part to low salaries in the affected positions. 2. Unreliable, inadequate, or non-existent computer systems and automation. Divisions that have computer systems are in need of either upgrades or replacement computer systems, and divisions that do not have computer systems need to be automated. 1:52:10 Three, threats to LGO's computer systems. It is no secret that the government of the Virgin Islands has experienced several security breaches that have had a clear impact on the operations of LGO. This appears to be inevitable in the modern world and has received local, national, and worldwide attention. Four, the need for more effective collaboration with other government departments and agencies. In order to be most efficient and effective in the collection of revenues, LGO requires collaboration with specific government departments and agencies. 1:52:53 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 8 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance This is a work in progress. Where does LGO go from here? In response to the above-referenced challenges, LGO recognizes that all but number 4 of these challenges require funding in order to address the underlying issues. With this in mind, LGO has established the following general and focused goals and objectives to address the challenges. We have begun to implement some of the initiatives associated with these goals. One, LGO has been trying to discover new opportunities and ways to locate and hire more staff and qualified individuals who possess the requisite credentials to perform the duties and responsibilities required in the respective LGO divisions. As stated above, the failure to attract candidates has been due in large part to low salaries which are not competitive in today's job market. 1:53:33 We recognize that we are limited in how we can address the deficiency in salaries as many of the positions are union positions for which salary increases are negotiated with the respective unions on behalf of all of their members and not on an individual basis. Notwithstanding, in an effort to recruit candidates to fill vacancies in LGO's various divisions, We continue to seek out prospective candidates by participating in the process established by the Division of Personnel, by posting ads in the newspapers, by participating in job fairs, and by submitting job postings to the University of the Virgin Islands. We are also working with the Department of Labor to identify programs for employment of individuals to assist LGO with completing certain projects. Additionally, we continue to participate in negotiations with other government of the Virgin Islands departments and agencies and the respective unions for wage increases for all unionized government employees. 1:54:36 We are also committed to revisiting job descriptions to address needed updates to duties and responsibilities in an attempt to address salary issues through the use of desk audits and possible reclassifications of positions. LGO has also recognized that the aforementioned staff shortages and salary issues have affected the morale of LGO employees across the divisions. In light of the limitations and challenges presented for LGO in addressing these issues lgo has been exploring ways of bringing camaraderie to the employees in both districts in december of 2021 we coordinated and sponsored an employee appreciation week during which each day there was a planned activity for employees including a group walk a christmas decorating competition a luncheon a movie night and webinars on dealing with stress fostering a positive attitude, respect in the workplace, and a presentation by the Division of Group Health within the Division of Personnel. Most notably, we distributed gift certificates from a local warehouse retailer that sells groceries, household items, bulk-sized items, and everyday essentials. Going forward, we have commissioned activities committees in both districts to plan and coordinate future activities. Two, LGO is engaging the services of the International Association of Assessing Officers, known as IAAO, which is the regulatory authority for the assessment of real property taxes in the United States and Canada. This organization will perform an audit of the current processes in the office of the tax assessor and provide technical assistance and guidance on how to implement best practices in the Tax Assessor's Office. 3. Lieutenant Governor Roach is committed to improving the working environment for all 1:55:48 LGO employees. When he first came into office, he recognized that LGO staff had outgrown the spaces in LGO's various locations and that the conditions at certain locations were unsatisfactory. He also recognized that there was a need to consolidate services offered to the members of the public in order to improve the customer's experience. At that time, he made a pledge to relocate affected LGO offices throughout the territory, and he began to deliver on that promise in the summer of 2020 when offices on the island of St. Thomas were relocated to Niski Center where other LGO offices were already located. This resulted in the consolidation of all LGO services with the exception of notary services which is provided from LGO's main office site on Government Hill that are offered on St. Thomas and created a one-stop location for the benefit and convenience of the members of this community. It is important to note that the new landlord is very responsive to LGO's needs and concerns. As promised, LGO is in the process of both consolidating services and providing a better environment for LGO staff on the island of St. Croix. 1:57:56 Thus far, we have entered into a lease for a location in Estate Castle Coakley and the Department of Property and Procurement is currently negotiating the purchase of a building in Christianstead. We thank this 34th Legislature for approving the budget appropriation to fund this acquisition. Four, LGO has several technological improvements currently on the way, and some to come in the near future, subject to the availability of funds. These technological improvements include A. LGO cannot completely remove the threat of computer breaches. No one can. However, LGO has been and continues to add security features to its current systems to reduce this threat. B, LGO has transitioned to a new vendor to provide a billing and collection system. This transition was needed because the previous system was unreliable, resulting in LGO's inability to report to auditors and track property tax revenues without engaging in manual processes requiring a great deal of time and effort and human resources as with any new system there are a few issues that we are working on with the vendor we do anticipate that once the issues are addressed this new citizen access portal will be an improvement from the old system allowing members of the public to utilize our online services from their home or office, to pay their tax bills, conduct searches for properties, to view the tax payment status of a property, to verify ownership of a property, and to conduct sales comparative searches to discover the sale price for properties sold in a particular area. 1:59:17 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 9 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance Indeed, we have already begun to receive positive feedback regarding the features of this new system. C. As stated above, LGO has negotiated with its current vendor to add e-recording capabilities to its current system for the Recorder of Deeds Division, allowing persons such as attorneys and realtors that use the system on a regular and frequent basis to record documents remotely. We have begun the process of trying to locate vendors who can provide the e-recording services directly to users who will be responsible for paying those third-party vendors for utilizing their e-recording services. We anticipate that this e-recording service will significantly improve the turnaround time for all recordings of ownership documents in the territory. D. We are currently working on a scope of work to solicit a vendor to implement an archiving system for the cadastral section of the Tax Assessor's Office. 2:01:11 This system will allow the Tax Assessor's Office to commence the archiving of cadastral maps and to bring the imaging and indexing of cadastral maps up to date. E. A new vendor has been selected to implement an unclaimed property database management system. The Unclaimed Property Program, under the oversight of the Division of Banking, Insurance, and Financial Regulation, receives and maintains funds received in the form of closed bank accounts, certificates of deposit, etc. 2:02:16 Discovering a new way of maintaining unclaimed property has been a challenge for the Division. The new system will allow LGO to electronically monitor unclaimed property funds and to process claims request within a shorter period of time. It will also allow LGO to publish the unclaimed property listing on an annual basis. It will greatly assess the administration of the unclaimed property program if LGO is able to hire a new employee dedicated solely to this function. F. LGO would like to upgrade the archiving, imaging, and indexing system for real property data recorded with the division of the recorder of deeds g lgo has been exploring ways of bringing the assessment and reassessment of real property in the territory up to date a request for for proposals has been sent out to solicit a vendor to conduct high quality drawn flyovers as a means of acquiring information on new constructions and improvements to all constructions in order to initiate the process for capturing these process properties in the assessment process, and as a means of increasing real property tax collections in the territory. These flyovers will be the first step of a territorial mass appraisal project. In H, we have entered into a contract to automate the notary division which will computerize notarial services in the territory. 2:02:53 In an effort to enhance the collection of property taxes, LGO has begun to improve collaboration with other government agencies on which we rely for information needed for the collection of taxes. Thus far, we have had fruitful discussions with the Department of Planning and Natural Resources and have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding facilitating the sharing of information regarding persons and entities that obtain building permits in the territory. We have also had discussions with the Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority regarding the sharing of information needed for the collection of sewer fees by the Division of real property tax on behalf of that office. In closing, the Office of the Lieutenant Governor is committed to increasing revenue collections and improving the way it provides services to the members of the Virgin Islands community. As always, Lieutenant Governor Roach thanks the members of this community for their continued support and constructive input regarding the operations of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor and its various divisions. He also extends his heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to the employees of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, recognizing their continued commitment and service to the government and the people of this territory. The essential role performed by each member of the LGO team in collecting revenues and providing needed services for the Virgin Islands community helps to ensure a better quality of life for all Virgin Islanders. Mr. Chairman, we have presented you with an overview of the Fiscal Year 2022 activities and accomplishments of the divisions within the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, the 2:04:34 challenges experienced by this office, and the Fiscal Year 2023 goals and objectives that with proper funding can and must be achieved in order to not only continue to generate revenues and provide services, but to increase revenues and improve services. We will now present our budget and revenue details and projections for fiscal year 2023. Thank you. One correction on page 12 where I stated the collection for all divisions within LGU as $62.2 million as of June, it was $62.2 million as of May, and as of June it's $76.3 million. 2:06:28 What page number? Page 12, first bullet. Under the Division of Business and Financial Management, the first bullet, deposited and reported on revenues collected for divisions of LGO for the benefit of the entire territory okay i got it thank you so much okay it was correction 62.2 was as of may as of june it's 76.3 okay we always like higher numbers you're going to read the last part or that's just for our information i'm sorry okay i guess that's just for us after the summary um the breakdown of the revenues that's just for us right okay thank you so much colleagues we're going to i know we need probably need two runs so we're going to begin with a five minute wrong um and then we'll go to a second i'm wrong after that um senator carla joseph and senator francis heiliger thank you for joining us and senator noble francis and st croix thank you for joining us yeah i have jayvan james senator james as president because our colleagues let's begin we'll begin with senator blind in five minutes before we start the blind inside let me just get some basic first um how How 2:07:28 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 10 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance many retirements, how many resignations? Just so you have those numbers. I want you to, you had asked the question we want you to ask, so I'm not asking the one. Senator General Saro, also she is present, committee member, thank you for coming. Okay, within what period of time, Senator? This fiscal year. fiscal year, 2022? Okay, I'll have to look at that and get back to you. Okay, no problem. Senator Blighton, you recognize. Thank you. 2:09:01 Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Good morning to my colleagues, listening, viewing audiences, staff, central staff. Good morning, Chief of Staff, Carbon and your supporting management team there with you. And thank you so much for that most comprehensive and in-depth testimony. with a very good presentation, a lot of information, good information, as a matter of fact, thank you for that. But before I go to my line of questioning, let me ask, in respect to your testimony, on page four, you spoke to, oh, OK. Let me go to your different divisions. 2:09:31 Can you go to your different division? Because I know you spoke to the one, your collection year-to-date out of June, which is 76 million. Can you go to page five of your testimony? Sorry about that. Can you give us an amount for the different categories, actuals? I know you have the 2021 actuals for real property tax, cadastro, banking and insurance, financial services, record of deeds, passport, and cooperation and trademarks. Do you have any year-to-date amounts for 2022? 2:10:22 Yes, yes, Senator. can you please share that with us okay uh a breakdown of the 76.3 million yes as of june 2022 is as follows real property taxes 23 million nine hundred fifty five thousand nine five five three hundred and forty four dollars okay miscellaneous cadastral two hundred and twenty three thousand three hundred eighty seven dollars banking insurance and financial regulation for banking we have twenty million five hundred sixty one thousand six hundred twenty three dollars financial services six million eight hundred ten thousand one hundred seventy two dollars record updates twenty million one hundred eighty two thousand seven hundred ninety seven dollars passport and notary nine hundred thirty six thousand three hundred ninety six dollars and corporations and trademarks three million six hundred and sixty the eight thousand ninety two dollars for a grand total of seventy six million three hundred thirty seven eight hundred eleven dollars thank you so much for that um and with that being said uh in respect to your vacancies how many vacancies do you have at uh on a current 2:11:06 basis senator yes currently uh we have about 37 vacancies 37 vacancies yes that's a lot well the reason for that is because there were positions that have been deleted and we needed to recreate positions for example in our gis division uh we came down to only having a manager and uh one of the positions we had lost so we had to we had to be creative uh in this day and age you have to do that and recreate the position and we're actually happy to see we anticipate somebody coming on board um actually they start you know started this week started this month okay one minute okay with um the lieutenant governor's office being the second highest revenue generator generator for the government we have 37 vacancies i mean you you guys are doing some tremendous work, I must say. 2:13:00 You're doing some great work. So imagine what can be accomplished once you're fully staffed. So you spoke in a testimony about being creative. What does that look like? What are you doing to really onboard individuals to assist in terms of collecting the revenue that's out there that needs to be collected? Well, like I stated in the testimony, we participate in the government process, which is the process for union employees. We've participated in job fairs. 2:13:58 We've sent out job postings in the newspapers. We've sent out job postings to the University of the Virgin Islands. We've started to move forward with looking at job descriptions as well. Some of the job descriptions are outdated. some were transferred from other offices and they don't apply to time. I see all that you said, but what about training up and then onboarding new individuals to fill those spots of those individuals that you have trained up to actually fill those gaps. Have you thought about doing that also? Well remember when you move up too, we have had promotions. 2:14:32 One of the individuals in the GIS division is going to be moved up and when you move up, you got to fill the position which they're moving of course um and a lot of the inch a lot of the entry-level positions the the salaries could be better we've had we had mr mills had someone hired he was on for a month and moved to another government agency because of pay you know because of the salary so we've been having a lot of challenges um senator but my time I've been called. I'll let my colleagues read down. Thank you so much. 2:15:15 Thank you, Senator Blighton. Senator, go ahead. I just wanted to respond to your question, Senator, number of retirements and number of resignations, four retirements and seven resignations. And to add to what Chief of Staff Carbon said, we do promote from within. So your vacancy numbers remain, it increases because we move people up. do a lot of you know in-house promotions we advocate for that how many individuals were hired in fy 22. in fy 2022 i think let's see about i can confirm for you i know we brought on board at least five to six individuals okay so you brought in let's say six but you lost 11. so So you have a wide avoid of five individuals, and how many were promoted? 2:15:47 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 11 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance In terms of promotees, thinking off the top of my head, it might be around three or four. I will have to confirm those numbers. And I just want to point a record, we realized that last fiscal season and we actually increased the budget for personnel and fringe, we increased the budget for personnel by some $500,000 for FY22 to allow the lieutenant governor office to be able to hire additional employees. and i'm looking at your actuals and your actuals you are not even on target um to spend four million so you're going to have in personnel you're probably going to have like seven eight hundred thousand dollars left back that's going to go back to the general fund um not necessarily we'll have to run the analysis but again we've been losing people and it's been hard to recruit and attract people okay and the post audit as of five five 22 which would be seven months you spend 1.7 million and you have allocated 4.5 well i'll go back there send the book because you recognize Has there been any extensive looking into virtual employees to help fill the gap during this time period where you physically can't get people living here? 2:16:48 Thank you. Virtual employees, no. And many of the LGO positions require services being provided. I was going to say that Ricardo De Zala, that you need actual people there that are able to service their clientele. Senator Bulquez. Mr. Chair, can I please have a point of personal privilege? Well, you recognize now for your five minutes, so you can utilize it. 2:18:35 I'd like to extend my condolences to the families of the three men that lost their lives in the La Grande Princess area in St. Croix. While I do not know the men, I have spent a lot of time there. My father is from that area and lived there 30 years, so my sympathy goes out to them. Thank you for being here with us, Chief of Staff Williams Carbon and team. As a proponent of e-government and expanding e-services in the Virgin Islands, I must say that the lieutenant governor's office has definitely done their job in that area, and I'm looking forward to seeing more enhancements in the virtual side of things concerning the regulations and telecommunications and services for government. I want to ask a question concerning your statement on page 20 of your testimony. You mentioned that there's going to be a new vendor. can you please inform us as to who the vendor is what the contract details are concerning the costs and if any of your employees are going to be receiving any training on the new database system I understand that you're trying to hire one employee you spoke about that in the testimony also and I'm wondering if that's enough if that one person will be enough to administer or control the system it's a territory system I'm assuming are you referring to the unclaimed property the system for unclaimed property yes okay could you repeat the question sorry if I'm going too fast I wanted to find out if you could inform us who the vendor is that is bringing forward this new database management system and I wanted to know what cost or details of finances are associated with with that cost and I understand that you're going to train one employee in order to utilize the system and i'm wondering if one employee is enough as well 2:19:03 okay for the specific information with regards to the contract and the cost i'm going to i'll defer to miss attorney matthew to respond well to all the questions good day attorney glendina matthew uh the contractor yes has been chosen the name of the contractor is avenue um in terms of the amount it's in the contractual phase so i'm not gonna uh put on the record and a specific amount because we just began the contractual phase of that contract. In terms of the number of employees, one is at least in a better position than we're in right now, preferably it would be two, one in each district, but at least one would be in a better position than we currently are with one individual okay so i'm assuming that you've had a lot of challenges in that area and that's why you're implementing the system uh so i'm looking forward to hearing more about that uh the next time you come to see us i also saw that you have a vehicle listing on the post auditor's report i noticed that um on the island of saint john uh the second oldest vehicle 2006 Wrangler in fair condition are you planning to replace that I know there's other vehicles on there in poor condition on the islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix, what are your plans to replace those vehicles? 2:21:04 Morning Senator the vehicle has in fact been replaced by an updated vehicle on St. John Okay, so that's incorrect on the testimony? That was the vehicle that we had there, but within the last two months or so, that vehicle has been replaced by a new vehicle. What about St. Croix and St. Thomas? St. Croix, well, Ms. Fountain, could you speak specifically to us? 2:22:47 In terms of Office of the Tax Assessor, for currently, between the end of the year, early this year we purchased uh a new we tend to buy jeep wranglers for them to go out in the field we purchased a jeep wrangler um i think the prior fiscal year we had purchased uh two wranglers for st thomas st john district and two for the st croix district so we have been uh moving along to replace we have we had a lot of vehicles that were 2012 that were older and started to show problems so we've been moving forward with replacing them it's my understanding based on recent discussion I need to take a look at in terms of vehicles for st. Croix in the Frederick said location but we have been moving towards replacing the vehicles time okay my time has been called I'll ask the other questions you're in the second round thank you for the time mr. chair Thank you, Senator Bulkwa, Senator Karyong. Okay, Senator James, you may proceed. 2:23:20 Good morning to the people of the U.S. for the knowledge. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the time. I see here in the bud, In your testimony, you made mention of the Street Addressing Initiative, and I know you have came down here several 2:24:36 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 12 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance times to explain the status of that project, and I'm happy to know that it's moving forward. But I just want to know, how much of this funding has been expended for the Street Addressing Initiative, and how much is remaining? There are funds, specifically we were awarded funding for the Street Addressing Initiative. I'm going to let Mr. Chris George, you can respond. And while he's making his way through the chambers, can you just let me know when this project is scheduled to be fully completed? Do we have any delays, possible delays, anything that is preventing our project from moving forward? We're just waiting on a notice to proceed from the Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority. We've been working through with them. We had a meeting as late as this week, so we're close to being able to move forward with that last phase, and I will have the administrator, George, elaborate. Yes, give me the brief, please. 2:25:18 Good morning, Chris George, administrator, D.I.S. division, project manager for the street addressing initiative. Speak into the mic. Good morning. Chris George, Administrator, GIS Division, Office Lieutenant Governor, Project Manager for the Street Addressing Initiative. Through Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority Community Development Block Grant, we were awarded $5 million, max at 5.3. We are currently in the ending phase of the project agreement, which we're writing out the full scopes, which had all the environmental reviews, all the federal reviews that need to go into the project. Sir, I asked a specific question. With all due respect, how much has been expended out of the $5 million and how much is remaining? 2:25:58 We are currently doing a project agreement. No funds have been used as yet. Senator, none can be expended until we get the notice to proceed from the Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority. We can't spend any of the money, even though it's been awarded. That is what I wanted to hear. Thank you. Thank you for your time. And I saw here where we have a vendor, CAVU, for approximately, I can't see this amount here, but I see where the contract ended April 10, 2022, and it's specifically for property tax billing and collection system upgrade. Is that information outdated? Have we renewed that contract with the vendor? we have not renewed that contract in fact in my testimony i mentioned the new billing and collection system um it's through e-ring it's called the citizen access portal and it is the system that replaced that kavu system and if i miss that i do apologize and if you could let us know the reason why we're no longer using that system i'm moving the new system moving to the Okay. 2:26:45 I stated in my testimony, the system was unreliable and we were unable to access reliable information from the system. So the determination had to be made. We had to move on in order to be able to collect revenues for the government. Thank you. You made mention that you'd be possibly moving into a new building in Castle Coakley. Have you completed the negotiations with the owner of that building? Yes, we have. We have the lease. We're doing the build-out at this time. The other building I referred to in Christian Stead, I stated that the Department of Property and Procurement, as the contractual agency for the government, is negotiating the terms for the... 2:27:55 I'm really trying to squeeze in my questions here today. And when you do that, it takes away from my time. I specifically asked about the building in Castle Corkley, and the next question is, what would be the cost and exact location of the building? It's number 35, estate Castle Corkley. Give us a minute, please. 2:28:45 And have you negotiated a possible cost, and if you did, have you factored that into the budget? we negotiated a cost senator uh we have a lease and yes it's factored into the budget and and how much is the cost give me one minute i think it's give me one minute and as you look for that information 325 000 let me look for the figure okay And as you look for that, I see there's a significant decrease in supplies throughout the various sections in the budget. Is this a cost-saving measure within the office of the lieutenant governor? What triggered that large and significant decrease all across the board when it comes to supplies? 2:29:14 Well, we have decreased supplies. There's a need to increase other services and charges for the various contracts that we have for the different divisions so in general we're looking to see where our needs are where we need to go and based on that we did an adjustment yes okay and then the last question regarding the the cost of the building you were saying something around a cost of 300 000 or something like that yes one minute and then the last question did we factor that into the budget as we speak about a budget that is before us we want to make sure that we can proceed with that yes we i indicated we did factor into factor it into the budget senator and while you look for that i see that there's a breakdown i would like a breakdown of the capital projects i see that you you're requesting 456 764 dollars for fy 2023 can you just explain to us what you plan to do with that is that part of the three hundred thousand dollars for castle coakley as well the time the figure for castle coakley is around three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars as far as the capital budget is concerned uh there's a need for us to do uh several things we have to revamp in our divisions uh there's a need to make changes with a lot of our equipment um technological as well as our basic equipment we need to make changes there also we have um we have a property on st john that we need to do some uh repair we need to secure it we need to um make some upgrades to that property on st john as well so that's all included Thank you for your answers to the questions, and 2:30:02 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 13 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance please, next time for the next round, let's make it brief so we can ask more questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the time. Thank you. Thank you, Senator James. In reference to the property in Christianstead, how long has property and procurement been dealing with this negotiation or trying to complete a purchase agreement? I know we appropriated the money a while back. it's almost a year in order to relocate the lieutenant governor office how long has it been in prepping procurement well there was a challenge they have to promote it go ahead probably about last summer so I know they were having challenges in finding adjusters there's a requirement I'm sorry appraisers Because Virgin Islands law requires three appraisals, and I guess with all of the construction and stuff going on, they were having challenges in finding or locating a... 2:32:09 Who was having trouble? Property and procurement? Yes. Property and procurement were having trouble finding appraisals. So just everything that the government wants to purchase or try to close a deal on, we know it's not going to happen because they don't have appraisals. okay um yes go ahead uh senator veille i just wanted to mention uh in terms of the vacancies uh 37 across all funds of which 24 is general fund and we explained to your situation before with respect to the positions you mentioned uh in 2022 some additional 500 000 for office of the lieutenant governor uh in fact for 2022 uh based on the budgets there was a a 50 there was a cut let me tell you what i'm referring to your actual okay fiscal year 2021 was 397 300 3 million 977 thousand eighty dollars and your appropriation was 4.5 million so in reference to your actual versus what was appropriated okay in my mind i thought you were speaking specifically about personnel services i know we didn't get any additional there and there was a cut and we were challenged to figure out okay how to distribute it so maybe i'm going to look back at the f121 what was appropriated but what you actually spent in 2021 under the personnel category is three million nine hundred seventy seven thousand that is what was spent on positions within the lieutenant governor office and then the appropriation for fiscal year 22 was 4.5 million under personnel okay if you look at your if you look at what you have now you look i look at your actuals your your actuals page five of sixteen post audit report your actuals with classified and unclassified and lump sum and overtime and everything else as of May 5th is $1,732,688, so that's from 2:33:04 October to May is seven months. So for more than half of the fiscal year, you have spent less than 50% of what was appropriated. Senator Vele, all I'm saying from a budget standpoint, unless you and I are not on the same page, LGO did not receive additional funds. I'm just putting on the record, pointing out that in fact we received a cut and it was a challenge to determine how to do that distribution. That's all I'm saying. I acknowledge that. 2:35:27 No, I wanted to make sure when you talked about a $500,000 increase, you weren't speaking about another department because I know it wasn't us. Okay, so I will take back the $500 increase, but I would say that the monies that you have allocated this year or appropriated this year, which is $4.5 million, after more than half of the fiscal year, you have not even spent 50% of the monies. Well, again, that's to be determined. The fiscal year is not over yet. Okay, what are your actuals as of now? What's your actuals? 2:36:00 I did not... Unless you're able to onboard a tremendous amongst of individuals, we're not going to spend those monies. Well, we told you we do have problems recruiting and retaining staff. We told you that we promote from within. It's a problem. Okay, so I just want to make sure we're on the same page. Actual versus budget. That's all I'm saying. The legislature job is to make sure that there's sufficient monies. 2:36:34 With the monies that we appropriated last fiscal year, at the end of the fiscal year, it's not going to be expended. So there is an issue with bringing individuals on because of the low salaries. However, this body don't negotiate. We don't negotiate. We have, on a regular basis, asked this government to either renegotiate contracts or to have some type of stipulation with officers collective bargaining so that you're not paying a tax collector twenty seven thousand dollars got in common and that is the position that is here you have vacancies funded at fifty percent and real property tax collector thirteen thousand nine or six that's fifteen percent teller thirteen thousand cashier thirteen thousand thirteen thousand i mean who come in that isn't the problem or the fault of the legislature which is the fault of the executive branch. They need to sit with these unions and come to some type of agreement so that the monies that are allocated can be spent and used and we can get people into position. And that's how we're saying. Every year we're hearing the same thing. We can't fill positions because the salaries are too low. 2:37:04 So what are you going to do? Senator, I can't. Not you, this is your argument. Okay, I'm just saying. In your argument. I just wanted to. Point of increase Senator Fred Gregory. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, colleagues, and good morning to the testifiers. Good morning. Just to try to address this conversation so you can understand what your challenges are. Do you bring individuals on on the third step? No, we do not, Senator. Why? Generally, as a general rule, they're required to start at step one unless, I guess, we can justify something beyond that based on their qualifications. 2:38:13 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 14 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance So as, I'm sorry? You know we can justify it. But as a general, well, but they have you budgeted at step one. But listen. So then you have to find a difference. Okay, so I asked for a point of inquiry, I need to ask just one question. But just let me wrap up by saying that this conversation is a conversation that continues to permeate throughout every single agency that comes before the legislature. So I understand the frustration of the chair and all of us because we continue to hear the same messaging. But what's missing from the messaging is we have yet to hear that we are sitting down as a executive branch team and looking at this issue to address it. We continue to talk about the fact that we have 12,000 plus 1,200 positions available, but they ain't getting failed. So if we continue to do the same thing over and over, and we're getting no results, then what do we call that? So this is not something that is necessarily directed to the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, but this is an overarching issue that we find that's occurring in the government, and it needs to be addressed. It's time. I've sat here for three and a half years, and this is the same message. 2:38:59 So hence the reason for the frustration. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you Mr. Chair, Ms. Carbone, earlier it was stated by my colleague in respect to the appraisal that PMP is waiting on, does the Lieutenant Governance Office have appraisals on his portfolio? Not that type of appraisals, that would be with Ms. Amos, but they are not trained for that type of... 2:40:13 Can you speak into the mic, please? I need to understand. It has to be an independent appraiser. It must be an independent appraiser. Okay, that explains it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator Blyden. Senator Joseph. A pleasant good day to you, Mr. Chairman, to all my colleagues and the viewing and listening audience, as well as the testifiers here today and present from the Lieutenant Governor's office. I always try to open up my speech with commending all of the hardworking people of the government of the Virgin Islands and especially today the lieutenant governor's office I know the division of banking and insurance has been working hard especially on a number of legislation with the legislative branch and I really want to commend you for all the hard work also on the office of the tax collector office you guys are doing a really great job and collecting those taxes so I'm gonna focus some of my questions relative to the tax collection and if you are able to give us some raw data that you have collected since we implemented that acting relative to advertising those properties that have been in arrears and going forward to collect those are funding how has that act increased our revenue generation in the collection of property taxes and if you could share with us precise numbers good morning senator Brent Laredam tax collector Mike pull the mic closer to you do not be afraid it is your friend 2:40:44 good morning senator Brent Laredam tax collector could you give me some clarity of which act you're referring to the act wherein we have advertised in the the newspapers all of those uh property taxes that have been in arrears for a number of years and they were giving an opportunity to make good or their properties would be auctioned that was the 2021 delinquency publication right and in that publication we listed tax years 2015 and prior okay that were delinquent and yes so during the course of um the fiscal year 2022 uh-huh um we have collected thus far some you have it you have it broken down with those in excess of 15 million in delinquencies 15 million yes ma'am very good and do you have the prior year collections in delinquency so we can do a quick comparative analysis uh for fiscal year 2021 the actuals that were collected in delinquencies was 29 million 255 thousand 393 dollars so we are looking that we collected a little less than the fiscal year before with the delinquencies well that's as of the end of fiscal year 21 we haven't reached the end of fiscal this this amount of 50 million is as of this is actual two minutes as of uh middle of july okay okay so we just say july okay thank you so much i want to go back to the personnel cost i know we were talking about that and i did know notice that we had a bit of jump here and a bit of decrease here kindly turned with me to page five of the post audit report i want to drill down a little bit more on that and it's noted that this expenditures 2:42:47 are comparing fiscal year 2021 to fiscal year 2022 as of may 5th and we're seeing here the total of personnel cost compared to uh fiscal year 2021 actual the fiscal year 2022 actual is about one as of May 5th is of 1.7 I wanted to ask just going down with the line itemized what is causing this this little jump for the overtime it's a overtime payment and you see a little well a little reject reduction in overtime what caused you to have a little reduction in your overtime cost senator over time would generally pick up once we issue the tax bills that's normally in june um also um well basically that's what drives it from then but one moment for me miss farrington but june has already passed and so the persons have not received their overtime payment is that what you're indicating this report you're looking at senator on page 5 of 16. it's of me it says as of 5 5 2022 okay if you generate a report in the government system um that is probably as of the end of april okay and i'm saying we haven't gotten to june time okay do you let me just finish up with this do you have the actual breakdown for us that you can share with us regarding uh most recent maybe until july as far as the expenditures are concerned i think you shared with us um uh the major lump sum expenditures i believe one of my colleagues asked that under personnel but do you have the expenditure listing as of july no i would have to provide that what i shared was the revenue 2:44:57 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 15 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance information as of june so true through the chair if i could hold up you ask a question how long would it take to get the actuals because the budget hearing and we need to know exactly what it is you could get them today go back to my office and generate a report as of hold up hold up your time was has expired but why don't why didn't you walk with the actual city budget here well let me look and see if i have something here but i'm saying um if i didn't walk with the report i would have to generate a report as of current is there somebody if you don't have it there is there somebody in your office that could generate the report that you could send it and generate the report, and we can get some actual data. 2:46:55 Give me one minute, Senator. Okay. Close out you, and we're going to want the actuals to move on so the senators can have real-time data. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we are going to need the actuals, and I really appreciate you. I look forward to receiving that document. Thank you so much. Senator Saro, you're recognized. thank you mr chair and good morning to all um miss carbon any new hires in um cadastral the last time you were here you had two in st thomas and three in st croix is that the same staffing you have for cadastral yes okay any new hires in cadastral no okay are you you have any vacancies in cadastral in in cadastral uh we have we have one one vacancy somebody was promoted so they move from one position to the next okay is anything in a budget for a new hire any new hires in cadastral new hires no okay what does cadastral cover what does it cover what's the subdivisions of cadastral it's within the tax assessment so tell me good good morning senator uh the cadastral unit covers the attestation of deeds as well as the um certification of maps good stay right there right so we have a bottleneck in cadastral happening 2:47:41 right now because a sale can't go through if we don't have the deed attested correct uh yes okay so let's jump back to kardashia now are we aware of the backlog with kardashia i am aware that there is some backlog i believe on the island of st croix we had an issue where where an employee was out on pre-approved leave and the other employee got ill. 2:49:29 So do you have sufficient staff for cadastral? The answer is no, correct? If anything, we would have to add positions, but I'll make this point. We have one territorial public surveyor, right? Our ideal would be to have one on each island. Right now he has to travel, but the problem is pay to pay some, you know, get another body on board so chief of staff carbon if that is the situation and you're coming to present your budget why is that not a new position that you need at the appropriate salary so this body can fund that's that's what I'm getting at I know what Kardashian you know and I realize that you have a bottleneck so why aren't you coming and saying I have a need do you have a need yes one One of the issues is the person, the public surveyor that's even there, thank God he's there because they pay. 2:50:00 We can't pay them what they're making out on the street now with all this construction. What is it? Six figures. We can't pay them. What is the... So what is this... Have you guys sat and decided on a decent salary? What is that decent salary for? Six figures is what they're making out there now. Two minutes. Okay. And what are you paying the cadastral right now? I'm not sure of that salary, but it's, of course, a government salary in line with other government employees, and that's something that we have to take into consideration. Even when we talk about bringing in persons, we have to consider who are already there and how their salary would be positioned with others there. 2:50:58 So I have two minutes left, and I don't want to belabor the issue, but that still doesn't negate the fact that the need wasn't said it doesn't negate the fact that you didn't testify and I'm exhausted with government agencies coming before us and saying that you know I guess the mandate from the top is to say that whatever we're giving you is sufficient and we just need a level of honesty to say hey we have an issue in cadastral we need to hire more people in cadastral we also intend i asked dr hall what would it cost for us to fund an appraiser program through uvi cell so you guys can start hiring appraisers and cultivating local appraisals so we have a duty but the need is not being said so we can't meet the need and then the first thing to come back and say we ain't got enough money we have to sit in need now let's go to property taxes, Mr. L. Adam. I note your real property taxes, your actuals. 2021, you collected $5.54.3 million, correct? 2:51:40 For fiscal year? Yes, Senator. Okay. The fiscal year ends September 30th, correct? Yes, Senator. You have your actuals per the responses to this, $23.9 million in property taxes. You've collected less than half of property taxes. Tell me what's happening over there. Well, those actuals that were given to you were as of the end of June. Tell me what's your actuals now. The actuals is just over $30 million. Okay, you're still way below the mark. 2:52:55 I'm sorry? Tell me, give me the exact number, 30 what? What's the correct number? 30 million, $294,973.30 as of yesterday. So will we be on target to collect roughly 50 million in property taxes by September? Yes, Senator. We're slightly behind, but we expect to meet that forecast. So when Mr. Chairman, make a conclusion. 2:53:25 So when we had a budget overview, the budget of this government is, we're relying on the projected amount of 50 million. That is what Director O'Neill came down here with for the budget overview, roughly. So if we're behind, again, what do you plan to do? Tell me the plan to meet that benchmark. Well, in the remaining months of 2022, we intend to have several initiatives that will spur the increase in collections. 2:53:56 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 16 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance First and foremost, we intend to publish the return mail that has been coming back, And so we intend to let the public know that it's the responsibility of property owners to update their address of record. Subsequent to that, we intend to be publishing a delinquency publication once the 2022 tax bills become delinquent. Subsequent to that, we also intend to have a campaign encouraging persons living outside of the territory to utilize the new capabilities of our citizen access portal to be able to not just pay property taxes but to initiate and to maintain payment plans for property taxes moving forward. So we expect with the final go live of our new payment processor on the citizen access portal that many persons who live outside of the territory that previously had issues reconciling delinquent accounts that they would now be able to do so online from wherever they are. 2:54:36 Mr. Chair, the citizen access portal, do you have a timeline when it will be up and running? The citizen access portal is up and running since June 1. right now you can perform uh property tax statuses you can do a search on any property uh and see how much is owed you can print free status reports that wasn't you basically highlighted that part of you not collecting some of those taxes because of that portal so when will that component be corrected so you can collect the taxes because you have two months left before the fiscal year ends yes it's is a payment portal working the payment processing portal is what we're waiting for is it is is it working it is it is not let me i can because i'm more familiar with with with the is it working it is not working because we're finalizing issues the stop there when will it work we are working with property and procurement we had to make some adjustments to the contract so that means what when hopefully within the next few weeks okay because if it doesn't work your whole plan gone your plan for individuals on the mainland to pay online is gone if the portal isn't working what lieutenant governor office is a tremendous revenue generator for the government of the Virgin Islands we need to fix these problems we need to get the lease completed to purchase a building move into the building get the point to fix all of these problems that the employees could be comfortable and we could generate the revenue that we need for this government um part of our inquiry quick senator fred gregory and now we're going to center francis island and the senator francis on sincroy yes thank you mr chair um i i thank you mr chair i heard the um tax collector indicate about um sending out notices or publishing in uh the return mail when do we send out the the property taxes for this year 2:55:58 the property taxes senator for 2022 was sent out around june 1 of this year so when do you intend to send out the return mail listing because the mail don't come back the mail if the if the mail on come back that should have been out what's the status of that well we are compiling the list it was a lot of mail that came back senator and so we expect to be sending that out in publishing it rather in early to mid August chief carbon are you on board with that yes there's a project going on now to to address the return mail yeah i i just find that we just we continue to spin our wheels with this particular conversation and there must be some system in place to address that as it occurs we have been having so many challenges with the tax system i have spent most of my time this fiscal period dealing and that's why we had to move from the old vendor to this new vendor and with every new system you have but it's much better than that old system we're just trying to eye out all kinks and like i said hopefully within the next three weeks we'll be able to finalize everything they it will help with the delinquency listings going out and everything okay thank you so much um colleagues what okay well let's let's wait one second everybody because we really want to right now it's not looking like we're gonna have two rounds because we have a number of senators so make if you call for point of inquiry make it um direct and make it relevant to what was discussed before senator zero point of inquiry thank you to the property taxes property 2:58:06 bills um bills were issued incorrectly did you have the opportunity to reissue the correct bills Mr. Mills? Mr. Mills? You could answer it. Mr. Yes, yes, Senator. Many of the bills were reissued. They have been updated, and we're now waiting for the reprint of those updated items. But the system should have many of that already embedded in it through the citizen portal. the reprint is what we're just waiting for the next uh i think by so what he's saying persons can go online and view that corrected hold up hold up my father can't go online he's 93 years old okay and there's a lot of people that can't go online if somebody goes into pay with a bill that is wrong when they give it to the cashier the cashier will realize that the bill is wrong because the system has been updated the cashier would have already have the new information in the system yes okay so that's that's fine and those are paid within the first week of getting the bill some individuals as soon as they get the bill they paid if they paid and they paid the wrong amount the amount that was in error are they going to get a refund yes senator okay so that's that's good refund no credit refund refund some people don't have the luxury of waiting for credit until next year they want the money back i neglected to to call senator the graph who was probably the second person here so senator the graph you recognize and i apologize for missing you uh thank you mr chair it ain't no problem man i i'm here as a soldier again uh good morning to my colleagues 2:59:58 good morning testifiers of you and listening and present i gonna first start off with i i've been sitting down and listening and when you hear the kind of millions of dollars are collecting thank you first of all thank you if i gotta take five minutes to keep saying it thank you so you know i want to start off with the employees first first of all attorney um glendina stop acting give her the position that done tell that to her tell that i hope she heard oh is she's a hold up stop 3:01:49 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 17 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance acting you win the academy awards up acting let's go i have faith in you i got faith in you guys so we move on on that one now i hearing about money and and and our kind of thing you spend all this money we ain't giving back nothing yet we got unionized employees how many unionized employees you have but you can speak a little closer to the mic please and state your name again Claudette Farrington I'm trying to think the majority of our employees are unionized I'm trying to think on a figure okay so have they negotiated as yet we came out a negotiation recently for the the master agreement rank and file have they been paid uh well based on the most recent negotiation uh we're waiting for further information from ocb uh so we just finished negotiation i think it was in june and june july okay so what would be the effective date for them to be paid uh i'm going toward any retro that is a determination that would be made i guess with ocb and omb uh we don't know we're waiting for further instructions okay but we participated in the negotiation so the negotiations is for a wage increase that is my understanding yes and okay so the employees are aware of it they are fully aware good i know the unions is that their responsibility fine okay good so um and you have monies to pay them um again all of that would be determined by um OMB, OCB, we haven't gotten to the point yet. Right, but again, for the 23 budget now, going forward, you have to be able to sustain it. Right, which is true. But again, I don't know what the numbers are for them yet in terms of OCB. Okay, so we need to know if we can find that out as fast as we can. So again, the employees is number one. It ain't no, you know, all the money you're collecting, like I said, it's because of who you have. 3:03:42 I remember the old adage when I was in the executive branch, do more with less. I'd never like that statement, but that's what you guys been doing. That's what the government does, more with less. So let's make sure they're compensated. Now you have non-unionized employees who the last wage increase, I can remember, was Governor Mapp gave out something in 2018. I think you have GS employees? No, we only have non-unionized and unionized master and supervisor. We don't have any non-union classified. 3:04:31 Okay, so other than the unionized employees, anybody receive a wage increase since? I think that 3% governor map? No. I think the most recent increases we did would have been for steel workers supervisor. based on their contract they were entitled to um a bump up effective i think was october 2021 okay so only unionized employees are waiting for wage increases i have any exempt employees received any wage increases not to my knowledge off the top of my head no okay i was looking at the post auditor's report from 2022 compared to the one for 2023 you have for 2023 budget you have 147 positions for the 2020 report what page are you on page 7 is it a personnel lieutenant governor's office will cover for 147 positions I see it is that accurate it is in that the 94 factors in the 50% cut for the vacant positions without the cut that figure would have been 106 instead of 94. So based on the information post audit received and we received it is correct in that for general fund the 94 is the equivalent factoring in that that percentage cut. 3:05:06 Okay because I knew in the 22 budget they had 162 positions. um like i indicated before even um previously positions were lost because there were cuts there have been cuts so cultural personnel time yes the funding the funding has been cut so that would mean the positions would be cut okay i i need to elaborate and if i may miss it yeah i need to elaborate on the cuts for personnel because on one hand we're saying we we're trying to get get personal we're trying to get salaries but then you're saying it cuts for personnel so maybe we're not aware of what a cuts off of personnel probably where my colleagues want to take off money's weight is you're probably in use as a good elaborator and that for me and um I'll just turn it back over to the chair okay the cuts for personnel for fiscal year 20 you mr. chair for fiscal year 2023 the 94 positions if you look at the specifics in the post audit our information the detailed information it would show you that while the failed positions naturally are funded 100 percent uh fte of one when it comes to the vacant positions they all reflect fte of 0.5 so those positions are not fully funded oh 50 I'm sorry oh 15 sorry 50 percent yes yes so those positions are not fully funded so that's how the post auditor came up if you're just counting based on FTEs based on the percentage 94 had they been fully funded uh one it would have been one of Okay, this is what OMB sent to us, this is a budget sent down from Government House. It's not the post-added budget, it's OMB saying that they're funding the position at 50 percent. 3:06:33 When we're doing the markup, we'll do whatever we need to do to move forward, but this is the budget sent down from Government House, and this is their recommendation, and some type of meeting should have been held with all the departments to discuss how you're going to move forward if you hire an employee come October 1st, October 1. Senator Francis Heiliger, you recognize. And Senator Gittins, thank you for coming. I don't want to acknowledge him. Good morning. Good morning, colleagues. 3:08:42 Good morning to the people of the territory, staff, central staff, people of the Virgin Islands. The first set of questions I want to ask has to do with personnel. As along the line of questioning, the governor is requesting that your allotment be reduced in regards to personnel. But has this agency done any type of assessment to know what your actual cost you really need in order to be successful at getting the job done? Senator, I guess that's something we would have to look at 3:09:11 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 18 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance holistically. in addition to looking at restructuring and updating our job specs in order to address the salary issue. We have been in communication with OCB with respect to some of our key positions in terms of what we recommend the minimum salary should be. So it's a bigger picture that we have to look at holistically. Have you done any analysis as to cost collections? For example, as you know I am going to be a full supporter and I applaud the lieutenant governor's office because you guys generate quite a bit of funds for the territory inclusive of also IRB and I truly believe that you should be adequately staffed. Have you guys done any type of analysis as it relates to what could be collected if you had accurate amount of staff to even showcase why and to justify why these monies are needed. No, not to my knowledge, Senator. I haven't done that. Okay. I also would like to know, in regards to the unclaimed property, as you know, we recently got a piece of legislation passed, and I have been working with you guys to really push that. In regards to the employees that you guys say you needed, Did you guys include that in this budget this year to verify? Because I heard you speak about it in the testimony, but are you directly going to ask for the additional staff to assist with that particular area? On claim property? 3:10:58 Yes. I think right now we have positions vacated that we're looking at using to target towards that specific activity. So that's a start there. In preparing the budget, I know we had an additional financial service examiner for banking. But again, that's an area where we're having a challenge with filling those positions because of the need for persons with accounting background. So we're still pushing. Also in regard to the unclaimed funds, one of the things that we still needed to get information on Has your agency, the lieutenant governor's office, been updated as yet as to the full total amount of unclaimed funds outside of the $15.9 million in the trust account? 3:11:32 Have you gotten that additional information as yet? Glendina Matthews, acting director. Yes, we have. uh we were advised by department of finance there is an additional 26 million that is in a special fund for unclaimed property oh okay so it's the 26 plus the 15.9 correct thank you so much that was a year of trying to get that i appreciate finally getting the number so yes okay i also wanted to know in regards to security breaches i know you guys spoke about the additional information um security with the new system have you i i know there was a situation where there was a potential breach um what kind of cost did that cost you guys have you been able to recover from the loss or what is going to be put in place outside of what you're attempting to do now with the new system to potentially fix these issues? 3:12:28 Okay, I'm going to let Director Lance McKay respond. Before he does, I would say with any security breach, the chances of recovering the information without pain, because a lot of times it's ransomware and we don't have the millions of dollars they're requesting the idea is to have backups where you have other access you know to your information or the data that you so you guys didn't pay out anything no okay but our backup systems is what we we beefed up on in addition to you know security but mr. McKay can elaborate further on that okay time good morning uh am i being heard yes good good morning uh lance mckay ms director lgo lieutenant governor's office um chief carven pretty much covered it we have beefed up but in terms of losses i would say we were able to recover about 90 90 of what was lost um We took a big hit on the banking and insurance side, some cadastro, but by and large because of the backups that we did quite a bit and going forward. 3:13:36 There were some issues that, for example, I was at the Lieutenant Governor's office and there were some issues during the amnesty period the last time before the system went online where some of the individuals there were a little bit frustrated because they were being told at the time to pay the full amount because they could not go into the system to know the balance minus the interest and the penalties. There were some people that paid the full amount and was told that they would then get a credit after the fact. One lady walked up to me very your time was called already if you want to just conclude i heard you having dialogue with my colleague in regards to issuing refunds is that going to be the policy for those individuals that overpaid during the amnesty period will they be getting a refund as well yes senator okay thank you so much um i appreciate the additional time mr chair thank you so much senator francis alaga um when for the refunds i went for the reprint of the property tax bills though those are issued in error uh the the reprints uh should happen uh where we know um towards the end of july before uh mid-august Before mid-August, okay, before August 15th, okay, and the refunds? 3:14:57 And the refunds by the end of August. Okay. Senator Francis, you recognize? Senator Francis, hold up. Senator Francis, Mike, we're not hearing him. Try it again, Senator Francis, hold his time. 3:16:29 Okay, I think you're good now. We're hearing you, but we're hearing some feedback. echoing in the background try it again okay media um hearing our feedback we could try it against another francis we could try it against another francis We can try it again to another one. 3:17:06 Okay, let's take a one minute recess. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you. 3:17:53 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 19 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance ¶¶ Thank you. Oh, my God. [2 such phrases repeated 19 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 3:21:14 Thank you. 3:31:44 People named in this transcript SUSPECTED, and a finding aid only. Names were matched by machine against the spellings used across all 426 of our transcripts, and the title is the one used in the room. Being named here is NOT evidence that a person attended or spoke · only that the name was said. Speech recognition mishears names, so a spelling may be wrong even where no alternative is offered. 5x Senator Novelle Francis heard in this transcript as: Francis 5x Lieutenant Governor Tregenza Roach heard in this transcript as: Roach 4x Senator Dwayne DeGraff heard in this transcript as: DeGraff, Dwayne M. DeGraff 4x Senator Marvin Blyden heard in this transcript as: Blyden, Marvin A. Blyden 3x Senator Fred Gregory the surname alone also matches: Donna A. Frett-Gregory; Donna Frett-Gregory 3x Senator Janelle K. Saro heard in this transcript as: Saro 3x Senator Kurt Vialet heard in this transcript as: Kurt A. Vialet, Vialet 3x Senator Marise C. James the surname alone also matches: Javan James; Giovanni James Sr heard in this transcript as: James 3x Senator Marvin A. Blighton heard in this transcript as: Blighton 3x Senator Samuel Carrion heard in this transcript as: Carrion 2x Senator Alma Francis-Heyliger heard in this transcript as: Francis Heiliger 2x Senator Angel L. Bolques, Jr. heard in this transcript as: Angel L. Bolques Jr., Bulquez 2x Senator Angel L. Bullquist Jr heard in this transcript as: Bulquist 2x Senator Carla Joseph the surname alone also matches: Clifford Joseph; Karla J. Joseph heard in this transcript as: Joseph 2x Senator James Senior 2x Senator Javan James heard in this transcript as: Jim Van James 2x Senator Javon E. James Senior 2x Senator Kenneth L. Gittens heard in this transcript as: Gittins 2x Governor Kenneth Mapp heard in this transcript as: Mapp 2x Senator Kurt A. Vele heard in this transcript as: Vele 2x Senator Samuel Caryong Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 20 of 21 Legislature USVI · 07-27-22 Committee on Finance heard in this transcript as: Karyong 1x Senator Donna A. Frett-Gregory heard in this transcript as: Donna A. Fred Gregory 1x Senator Donna Frett-Gregory heard in this transcript as: Donna A. Frett-Gregory Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 21 of 21