USVI Public Records

Document text

VI UPDATE U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance Legislature USVI July 1, 2025 · 4.2 hours · gov Source recording https://youtu.be/BnNX1F4O3F8 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. Thank you. [1 such phrases repeated 22 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 0:00:00 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 0:11:00 Thank you. so so Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. 0:13:00 ¶¶ Mi lo la la de lo te lo dai, mi lo la la de lo te lo dai. ¶¶ Thank you. 0:17:00 Oh, yeah, man. Thank you. Thank you. so Thank you. 0:18:58 so so so so ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Oh, my God. [3 such phrases repeated 11 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 0:21:28 Oh, my God. Thank you. [2 such phrases repeated 9 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 0:29:28 We'll be right back. Thank you. 0:34:28 We'll be right back. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Good job, my dear. 0:35:28 Thank you. Thank you. so so so Thank you. so We'll see you next week. Oh, my God. 0:37:58 Thank you. ¶¶ [2 such phrases repeated 12 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 0:42:28 so so so Thank you. Thank you. guitar solo Thank you. [3 such phrases repeated 9 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 0:48:28 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) 1 of 21 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 0:54:58 Thank you. Thank you. 0:56:28 Thank you. A pleasant good morning to everyone. 0:57:28 The Committee of Budget, Appropriations of Finance is hereby called to order. Of course, today is July the 1st, 2025, and this is the Budget and Appropriations Committee, and I'm the chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, Novel E. Francis, Jr. Today, we have before us the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, as well as Sports, Park, and Recreation, and property and procurement. So we do have a long day before us, but nonetheless, we are poised and ready to undertake it. At this time, Madam Clerk, can I have a roll call? 0:58:16 Senator Marvin A. Blyden. Senator Blyden, present. Senator Duane M. DeGraff. Senator DeGraff, absent. Senator Ray Fonseca. I'm here Senator Fonseca, present Senator Novel E. Francis Jr. I'm here Senator Francis Jr., present Senator Hubert L. Frederick Present Senator Frederick, present Senator Maurice C. James Senator James, absent Senator Kurt A. Vele Santovelli absent. Mr. Chair, four present, three absent. Very well. We do have a quorum. I'm prepared to proceed. Any correspondence to be read into the record, Madam Chair? 0:59:03 Yes, Mr. Chair. You may proceed with reading those correspondence. Letter dated July 1st, 2025, Honorable Senator Novel E. Francis, Jr., Chairman, Committee on Budget, Appropriation, and Finance, 36th Legislature of the Virgin Islands, Capitol Building, St. Thomas, VI-00802. Dear Senator Francis, Jr., please accept my sincere apologies as I am unable to attend the Committee on Budget Appropriation and Finance, scheduled for today, Tuesday, July 1st, 2025, due to a prior commitment. Kindly excuse my absence. I regret any inconvenience this may cause, and thank you for your understanding. Respectfully, Maurice C. James Esquire, Senator, 36th Legislature of the Virgin Islands. This concludes the reading of the correspondence, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Madam Clerk. You could record Senator Maurice C. James as excused, and please proceed with the reading of today's agenda into the record. 0:59:58 the committee on budget appropriations and finance will meet on tuesday july 1 2025 10 a.m in the earl biotley legislative hall on st thomas to receive testimony on the fiscal year 2026 budget block 1 10 a.m to 12 noon bureau of motor vehicles invited testifier barbara jackson mcintosh director block 2 1 to 3 pm vi department of sports parks and recreation Invited Testifier, Vincent Roberts, Commissioner Nominee Block 3, 3 to 5 p.m., VA Department of Property and Procurement Invited Testifier, Honorable Lisa Aliandro, Commissioner This ends the reading of today's agenda, Mr. Chair Very well, thank you very much I also want to recognize the presence of non-committee members Senator Avery Lewis, the Secretary, as well as Carla J. Joseph. 1:01:07 Morning, Senator. Welcome. I also want to take this opportunity to say happy anniversary. Happy wedding anniversary to my wife, Avril. Hopefully, we'll get to have dinner later. I also want to extend happy anniversary to my colleague, Senator Kurt Viale. He's not here yet, but certainly him and his beautiful wife, Wanda Figueroa VLA is also celebrating their anniversary today we do have the Bureau of Motor Vehicles seated and ready to go so at this time we'll go to the testifiers table and we'll introduce the director first of all and then her staff if you just I'm sorry I also recognize the presence of I'm help walk as junior I thought they call your name during the roll call I thought you remember y'all was here sorry about that all right no problem good morning my name is barbara jackson mcintosh director for the bureau of motor vehicles good morning my name is patrick sprang assistant director motor vehicle good morning everyone my name is reese creaky compliance auditor of the bureau of motor vehicles good morning my name is linda lloy chief financial officer of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Good morning, everyone. My name is Simonia Michel, Deputy Director of Human Resources, Bureau and Labor Relations. 1:02:33 Good morning. My name is Mireille Smith. I'm the IT Project Manager for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Very well. Welcome to all. At this time, we recognize the presence of committee member, Senator Kurt VLA. I did extend happy anniversary to you in your absence, sir, so happy anniversary to you and your beautiful wife, Wanda, of Wanda Figueroa of VLA. You recognize your point of personal privilege. Good morning. Please recognize the mic of Senator VLA. 1:03:57 Good morning. Good morning to the people of the Virgin Islands. Good morning, St. Croix. I wanted to first, Mr. Chair, on that happy anniversary. As I asked him yesterday, how dare him have a meeting today? When he knows it's my anniversary, but it's also his anniversary. his anniversary. So happy anniversary to my wife of 26 years and also happy anniversary to Avril and Novell. Congratulations. Thank you very much Senate Majority Leader Senator Kurt Biale. At this time Director Markitashi may proceed with your testimony. 1:04:28 Thank you. Good morning Senator Novell E. Francis, Chair of the Committee on Finance. Members of the Committee on Finance are the members of the 36th Legislature, the listening and viewing audience. I'm Barbara Jackson McIntosh, Director of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. I'm here with the members of the BNB team, Assistant Director Patrick Sproul, Ms. Miriel Smith, the IT Project Manager, Ms. Simona Michelle, Deputy Director of Human Resources, Payroll 1:05:04 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance and Labor Relations, Ms. Linda Lloyd, Chief financial officer and Mr. Reese Creek compliance auditor. We are here to provide testimony on our fiscal year 2026 budget for the operations of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The mission of the BMV is to provide the public with drivers licensing, vehicle titling, vehicle registration services and other business transactions required by law our vision is to be a leader in efficient and user-friendly government which provides real-time solutions and access to the gvi services the bureau has two key divisions the administrative support services and customer services within the bmv there are five functional activities namely the office of the director administration drivers licensing and identification registration and inspection and records management and information systems currently the bmv's personnel strength status is 63 authorized positions we have five vacancies we have completed the interview process for one of the vacancies and will begin interviewing for another position tomorrow the other three vacancies will be posted shortly all employees in the united steelworkers masters union as well as non-union classified employees receive their salary increases and back pay that were owed i will take the opportunity at this time to congratulate our employees of the year miss linda lloyd in the St. Croix District and Ms. Simone Michelle in the St. Thomas St. John District. These employees were selected from among the the team of hard working and excellent employees who truly exemplify our motto which is excellence is all we do. The management of the BMV deeply appreciate you and the rest of our team members. 1:07:05 For fiscal year 2026, the recommended budget for the BMV is $6,486,954, of which our recommended general fund appropriation is three million five hundred and ninety six thousand three hundred and sixty five dollars one million dollars from the bmv fund and one million eight hundred and ninety thousand five hundred and eighty nine dollars from the personalized license plate fund the the general fund and bmv fund appropriations will be used for personnel personnel services while the plp fund appropriation will be used for supplies rent utilities maintenance and operating expenses we have projected that at the end of fy 2025 our revenue collections will be 10 million five hundred and fifty thousand eight hundred and thirteen dollars as of may 30th 2025 our revenue collections were seven million one hundred and thirty three thousand eight hundred and ninety nine eight hundred and eighty nine dollars we are on track to meet our fy 2025 revenue goal that was set and i may add as of this morning june um second first sorry july 1st our um collections were seven million eight hundred and forty four thousand one hundred and seventy nine dollars we are trending an average of eight hundred and ninety two dollars thousand dollars per month in 1:07:55 collections our long-term vision for the bmv is a continuous improvement of our delivery of service through automation, the reduction of redundant processes, and the professional development of our staff. To measure our progress, we have identified nine key performance indicators that capture and provide insight into our overall performance. We have set goals based on past performance, predicted trends, and considered the myriads of service delivery options and customer needs. To date, we have met seven of the nine goals that were set for this fiscal year. We are confident that we will reach the other two goals by the end of FY 2025. We continue to respond to the results of the KPIs by encouraging the usage of our online services, primarily for the renewal of driver's licenses registrations which are two areas of concern the staff continuously participates in training classes in various subject matters to include the bmv internal processes cyber security customer service active threat first aid cpr ethics fire extinguisher document inspection and sexual harassment we continue to strengthen the customer communication channels via our online contact center that provides responses to customer inquiries either using the virtual agent or customer service representative the operation and process flow in all our offices continue to 1:09:40 improve the BMV customer experience the average wait time in the St. Thomas office has been consistently 30 minutes except for the last five days of the month our average wait time is 45 minutes while in the St. Croix and St. John offices the average wait time is 15 minutes except for the last three days in a month the average wait time is 20 minutes We continue to collaborate with our strategic partners such as the Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs, the Taxi Commission, Superior Court, the VI Internal Revenue Bureau, the Police Department, Insurance Providers, and the National Insurance Crime Bureau, just to name a few. 1:11:31 This has allowed the BMV to leverage data and information as a means of improving internal accuracy and efficiency of documents issued. We have completed a major paper reduction initiative. The final process was evaluated and will be implemented next month, which is August. The goal of this initiative is to reduce costs and redundancies and improve accuracy and data entry. For FY2026, our plan is to improve on our point system. 1:12:24 We have received a grant award from the Office of Highway Safety to complete the implementation of the point system. The proposed cost is $237,089. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles has successfully completed the internal development of the VI point system process flow. This framework outlines the procedures for tracking and managing driver violation points. 1:13:08 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance However, implementation is currently pending a critical legislative amendment. Under the existing law, Title 20, Section 801 of the Virgin Islands Code, a driver who accumulates 12 or more points must have their license suspended through a formal petition to the court by the director of BMV to streamline enforcement and enhance road safety. We have requested an amendment that would authorize the BMV to administratively suspend the license once the 12-point threshold is reached, eliminating the need for court intervention. 1:13:42 We have begun the preliminary work for the development and implementation of the Virgin Islands commercial driver's license. We are receiving ongoing training and technical assistance to aid us in the successful implementation. The process is slower than planned because of the various pieces and parts that must be considered, such as the required annual medical data, drug and alcohol requirement, entry-level driver training, testing records, problem driver points assigned to the CDL, public information and education, the BMV website update, usvi cdl manual employer notification and driving schools accreditation may 7th 2025 was the deadline for pro for people who wish to utilize a real id identification card or real id driver's license as a travel document a real id is indeed real as determined by the u.s department of homeland security we remind our customers that if you have a passport green card or any other valid travel documents you do not have to use your real id upon approval of the fiscal year 2026 budget by this body we at the bmv strongly believe that along with the grant funds we will continue into fy 2026 to achieve our vision to be a leader in efficient and user-friendly government which provides real-time solutions and access to gvi services as we move forward we will revolutionize how we provide services to our customers that will elevate enhance and personalize how our services are provided via exploring investigating and adopting the most creative platforms available the bmv will also continue to work more efficiently effectively and economically to build customer value while simultaneously being mindful to take equal care of both our employees and our customers mr chair i thank you the members of the committee 1:14:26 on finance and other members of the 36 legislature for inviting me and team bmv to present our fiscal year 2026 budget and to share with you a few of our accomplishments for the past year and our plans for fy 2026 we are prepared to answer your questions and engage in further discussion mr chair uh thank you very much uh director mcintosh for your testimony and um again congratulations and the bureau of motor vehicles to you and your team you continue to be one of those agencies within government that's continued to be recognized as being progressive and um you know do even though you may have some of your challenges you still continue to shine and and make this government proud in terms of your improvement in a number of areas I want to also recognize the mom of Miss Michelle Smith whose Michelle of course is our track star and continue to set and break records and currently an ambassador so we want to recognize her as well and continue to to wish her well in her endeavor as you continue to put St. Croix and the Virgin House on the map in all of her efforts so I didn't want that to go unnoticed as well as to commend your employees of the year Miss Linda Lloyd and Miss Simonia Michelle I want to also recognize them for their work just a couple of things real quickly of course have you received all of your budget allotment for 2025 fiscal year 2025 yes we have have you seen any cuts so you have received them as per the appropriations as per the appropriations we have received no cuts okay all right at some point later on there will be a 1:17:02 request for the actual so you can start getting those together actuals to date and thank you for providing the real-time information in terms of your collection we're in the neighborhood of seven million eight hundred and forty four thousand one hundred and seventy nine dollars and of course your projected goal for revenues is ten million five hundred and fifty thousand eight hundred and thirteen dollars a vendor's payment to where are we with vendors payment we are up to date with vendors payment we just have just three outstanding we're waiting on the supply contract to make those payments so all of your vendors are up to date on the payment yes and those three that you mentioned how long are they owed for these are just recent no they're for about 30 90 days we still 30 or 90 90 days okay how much is owed to those vendors um for each it's like three thousand um yeah so all together it's like six thousand but it's three three hundred and what's the challenge with paying those at this time uh we're waiting for uh approval of the supply contract we can't proceed without that okay yes all right and um in terms of your vacancies i know you mentioned that you have five vacancies one um currently being processed or being filled and then you have one in the pipeline with that interview tomorrow um so do you believe you'll be able to complete the other three within this fiscal year or you'll be seeing some savings no no we will we will be the um the prs is actually going through the process okay do you believe you have um had any revenue loss no i don't think 1:18:56 So, no, that's not correct. As far as standard revenue that we see on an annual basis, yes. However, I believe with increased collections, you know, we have a lot of unregistered vehicles. So far for this fiscal year, up until May, we have $1.6 million in unregistered vehicles. And so if we are able to do that collection, that would be significant. Another area that we feel that we are losing revenues and it's unregistered, I mean, uninsured vehicles, right? So the system, unfortunately, we don't collect the data real time from the insurance company, so it's very difficult for us to cancel registration for non-insurance. So for example, if you come in today, July 1st, and you register your vehicle, and your 1:20:45 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance insurance ends three months down the road, we have to register you, and then now you become uninsured. So what is the concern about closing the loop on that particular issue? I believe that there should be some amendment where the registration and insurance need to end at the same time. I think that would help. Yeah, that's hard to do, but, yeah, yeah, but. Point of information. That's rather hard to do. Point of information, Senator Fonseca. Yes, good morning. 1:21:51 Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to the people of the Virgin Islands and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, Director Jackson McIntosh. But real quickly, the status of the undocumented alien license, has that been suspended or that's still in progress? I'm not sure what that question is, but it's a special purpose, limited purpose license. It was not an undocumented license, it's a special, anybody could get that license. 1:22:22 So yeah, the license we're still issuing. Oh, thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Very well. You know, at this time, I'll go ahead and open up the floor for a five-minute round. And the order that will go thus far is Angel Bulquez, Jr., Senator Marvin Blyton, Senator Ray Fonseca, Senator Hubert Frederick is the first four. Senator Bulquez, you recognize for your five minutes. 1:23:02 Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Good morning, colleagues. Good morning to the listening and viewing audience. Good morning to central staff, and good morning to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles leadership team. Director McIntosh, good morning. Good morning, Senator. You had a very good testimony. I want to thank you for all of the work that you do and continue to do along with your administrative team and everyone who works at the BMV. For the past few years, I must say that it's been very, very smooth when registering vehicles. I would like to see a little more changes in St. John, but that's a whole different discussion that we can have on the back end. 1:23:30 But irregardless of that, you know, the staff is happy, and we continue to get things moving along, so thank you for that. I wanted to know, what enforcement mechanisms do you have in place to collect, you know, delinquent fees or fines related to expirations of registrations or unlicensed drivers or violations? As far as the BMV, if you don't register your vehicle, there's a fine. There's a, I don't know the number off my head, but it's a calculation. But that's all we do is late fees, that's all we can do. 1:24:09 I wanted to at least get that on the record. When was the last time those fees have been visited? I don't know, but I know I've been, it has to be about 20 years. Okay, I know that we moved to change some of the traffic violations here recently. I'm not sure if all of those fees are the fees that are on that same table, or if there's a separate table of fees that you utilize. No, it's not the same table. So it's not, so it hasn't been changed in 20 years? Yes. Okay, so those are one of the things that we would like to see or understand, so that if in fact it does need to be revisited that we can do what we need to do here in this institution. As for the projected 10.5 million for fiscal year 2025, the revenue comes from online or in-person transactions. Could you tell me which one has the most growth potential in a sense of where you collect most of your revenues? Is it online or just in person at the BMV? 1:24:45 in person at the bmv in person at the bmv do you have any numbers that you could share with us pertinent to that i do but not right now no i could get it to you before the end of the session okay thank you uh through the chair to director mackintosh to provide the numbers for in-person versus virtual collections um for the past two fiscal years if that's possible yes it's possible okay thank you um has the bmb considered increasing or revisiting um any processing or title transfer fees or or do or um license um revenue licensure um fees recently no we haven't you haven't no okay i'm looking at things from a collection standpoint i'm looking at things from a revenue generating standpoint right now because the more revenues that you can collect the less that you have to come to us to ask for so I'm looking at it from that perspective you also have 5.3% of the highway safety point system grant has been expended yes what are the barriers preventing any faster utilization of this fund and how long has it been in place this has been in place for a little over well almost a year it's not a year however the back I don't look at it as a barrier but we are going through the procurement process for the vendor that the rest of the money is basically for the vendor to enhance the system and also we have recently made a request to hire a point system coordinator to assist in coordinating the various components of the program so someone was 1:25:44 identified and we're hoping that that person is actually an in-house person so we're gonna make that transfer pretty soon and the rest is basically for the software. Okay and you also alluded to that the rollout of that system you know in its full entirety hinges on legislation and what exactly I mean what what happens if it doesn't pass what happens to the grant if you know if we don't move the legislation in time is there a time sensitive for the grant concern in the point system it is time sensitive we have another year but even if it doesn't then the legislation is not amended which I'm confident that it will we still have to move forward but the barrier is that now we have to petition the court and you know because we met with the AG's we met to the Attorney general office and they basically expressed their concern about now having that extra workload of petitions that they now have to take to court and the court already have their workload as well. So their 1:27:41 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance concern is that the suspensions will not happen as fast as we would like them to. One minute. Okay, very well. And when was the last time employees have received any raises at the BMV? I want to say last year, but let me have Ms. Michelle, our HR Director, answer that. Good morning. Simonia Michelle, Deputy Director of Human Resources, Bureau of Labor Relations in fiscal year 25, Senator. What month? In fiscal year 25. Okay. At the beginning of the fiscal year? Yes. How much money? Yes. I would say that. Okay. Concerning the vehicles, I think you said it's- 30 seconds. vehicles and two are in poor condition how poor of a condition are we talking about very poor one is an inoperable something happened they can't diagnose what the issue is and but it was an old vehicle we had launched them as long as we could so they really went under their last leg so we have to let them go okay could you give me the split between islands how many vehicles st. John has one. St. Thomas has two. Two functioning. And St. Croix has three. Okay. All right. Well, I'll listen into the rest of the conversation. And thank you for the time, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Senator Bulquez. Before we go to the next senator, which will be Senator Blyden, directly didn't talk much about infrastructure improvement today. What's happening in both districts in regards to your build out of facilities in st let's talk about St. Croix first St. Croix as everyone know we still in trailers we really never received any monies to build a building on St. Croix we received some monies from the FEMA project worksheet for improvement of a building that we can't improve the building is done and so that's where we are at on St. Croix we are actively 1:28:56 looking though with the help of ODR we are actively trying to find a spot where we could go it's very difficult what we have found and I'm telling you we've been to seven different places what we have found the issues either parking ingress and egress the same on St. Thomas St. Thomas we do have monies to build and we can't we have to demolish where we are which we can't because the The inspection lane is still there and we can't demolish with them there. And so we thought we had a place up until a month ago and that fell through. 1:30:43 So in St. Thomas, we're actively looking for a relocation spot as well. Do you have a cost estimate for what a facility will cost on St. Croix? No, not current. The one we had was a few years ago, like seven years ago, and that would have been about three million. It came in like two point something, almost three million. I know that there was a proposal on the table to utilize the old Hovensa Training School as a facility. What's happening with that? 1:31:20 So that fell through as well because in between trying to get the building together, The electrical was vandalized, severely vandalized, so now we have to basically start all over again. The electrical is old, so there's a lot of old stuff in there that had to be redone all over again, so the cost for us was prohibitive, so we really couldn't do it. Is there any truth that you have property across from the court, the Superior Court? No, not that I know of. Not that you know of? 1:31:53 No. Point of information, Senator Bulkers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My point of information stems from a comment that the chairman made. Pertinent to St. Croix, but in this case to St. John, especially with the facility there, which is also in a trailer. And I'm curious to know, have we looked into any designs? Because we could utilize, I know the footprint is small, and there's a lot of congestion taking place there, place there but have a good design that has a small footprint with a drive-in bay on the bottom and then offices on the top and that way people can just drive in on the bottom and get registered and come out so i mean that's a suggestion i'm sure that these are things that you think about every single day but what are we going to do i know that there's retrofitting taking place but in the long term that facility also needs to be um reconstructed totally agree and everything is possible um with appropriate funding yes i agree well if you have a quote i suppose that you know you could always lobby us thank you thank you thank you all right thank you thank you that concept was actually used back in the in 1980 when they designed um the facility in st croix You actually used to go and drive on there and do the inspection back then as well. Senator Bly, do you recognize for your five minutes? 1:32:29 Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Good morning to my colleagues, listening to you and audiences. Star Central staff, good morning. Director McIntosh and your professional team there with you, and thank you so much for your testimony. Good morning. I must say the Department of Motor Vehicles are doing a pretty good job. I go there all the time on purpose. Just walk through, see what's going on in the space. Service has improved tremendously and I must say since moving to the country, it has actually improved a lot. But my question is, speaking to issues with Sinclair and Sinclair in terms of a building, how much are you paying for that building all over the world? How much are you paying annually? How much? 1:33:56 I'll ask Ms. Lloyd. The building in Tutu Park? Yeah, how much are you paying for rent? for rent okay right now it's going up to like six thousand uh four hundred and twenty eight dollars it's going obviously yes so they're increasing yeah it goes it went up this month yeah every july it goes up and i believe with the other two spaces when you do find a location location is is critical in terms of um people getting to and from that area okay i think that's a centralized location right now but um i think that's going to play a big role also but that's a little steep how much square footage we speak into i don't recall okay get information me please thank you so much um vacancy i know you spoke about vacancies you have three vacancies which island are those vacancy on st thomas or st croix um two on st thomas and one on st croix yes and 1:34:39 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance the two on st thomas is customer service or office manager customer service and do you believe in terms of your revenue once you hire those individuals it would assist in increasing your revenue some of someone no no senator why not it would assist increasing our service delivery um most of our issues are basically unregistered vehicles so even though we are two persons i can't say well for sure that people are going to come because we have two extra persons what it will do is help us to move faster okay very well you spoke to in your testimony about training etc and customer service in respect to training how much was allotted for training this year and how much do you have for training next year and what do you expect of the result of the training that's coming forward in terms of outcomes okay while mr. Lloyd is looking for the training figures I must say that okay so I have the figures let me let me say in 2025 our training budget was six point six thousand six hundred and seventy thousand dollars so far for sorry in 24 is 66 70 so far in 2025 we have spent five thousand seven hundred and eighty dollars however we have maybe two or three more trainings to go so we probably top off almost $10,000 in training. What we expect from training as as what we are seeing now that's ongoing, we are really seeing a difference in in the service delivery, the interaction with the customers. Sometimes Senator you know it's not always easy you know the employees have to deal with IRA customers one after the other all day long and sometimes we forget that they are human right so we that's why we continuously train in service and training you know cultural diversity training as well and so we are seeing a vast improvement in how we deliver services to our customers. I can agree and professional development of staff is very important. Let me ask you in respect to the Postal Report page 8. You have two grants both of them were the first one Office of Management and Budget, US Treasury American Investment Plan 2021 um and the period have expired from 22 to 25 you have a balance of 63 000 hours you can tell me one of what those grant was for and the second one likewise one minute 198 000 but none oh i'm sorry all have been spent i'm sorry yeah what what was that going for sorry so the grant was 1:36:23 basically for personal services um during covid we have gotten the money primarily for we had a lot of backlog because people weren't were not coming to the bureau for services or we couldn't accommodate folks at the bureau so we have to deal with that and um currently the um and then we did some data cleanup with this money 30 seconds the balance is currently to assist with a commercial driver's license program we are um trying to onboard someone to help us to to deal with that is a huge program so we have it we're gonna get some help and before my time is called let me actually respect to the wait time um you spoke to St Thomas average wait time is 30 minutes during a regular day yes normal I know I'm talking about the end of the month and St. Croix 15 minutes that's a whole 15 minutes difference what what have you time respect to the large difference in time um is it staffing is it operation how it's set up what what have you seen in terms of the difference in 15 whole minutes even though i feel that's a good time based on what i've seen but when i heard what you said that's even excellent to me what talk to me what's going on okay so the difference is workload and what in each office we have well especially on st thomas we have um business owners that we call couriers oh yeah so in saint thomas we have a lot of those i think we have like 20 couriers it's incredible we have 10 and so there's a person that's dedicated to actually handling that segment of our um a customer base then in um and it so because so that's one person less right because that's all they do and then we have a lot of businesses in St. Thomas that does business through our online portal as opposed to St. Croix while we have a 1:38:18 person on each island that does businesses through the online system St. Thomas has like triple that actually utilize the service so that's why we have to hire the other two persons like right now it's a little slow because we are down two persons so hiring two more person we believe will assist us in increasing that a little further that makes sense now you can see the reason why there's such a large difference in terms of because that's a lot of traffic basically even though it's not one person but our person have like 15 20 30 40 per carrier per day correct i know yeah i see it on regular it explained it thank you so much for your response thank you so much mr chair for the time thank you very much senator blyden um for your line of questions i also want to recognize the presence of committee members senator dween m the graph morning senator welcome um so recently I went to the BMB to renew my driver's license because it was my birthday last week and it was in and out. I mean, I was out there within 30 minutes. The whole process was very seamless and certainly I want to commend Postina. Again, she's been there a long time, back in my days as well, so she knows the system and is able to process these things real quickly. Do you have telecheck at your cashier's yes yes senator are you experiencing any return checks or bounce checks we are we don't have a high volume at all um and when we do get them i think we only have maybe one uncollected but we've we're able to collect all and then of course you can't use another check again so okay not very well at this time the chair will recognize senator ray fonseca you 1:40:07 recognize for your five minutes. Thank you Mr. Chair and good morning again to the viewing and listening audience and colleagues and director of BMV Barbara Jackson McIntosh. I also want to say a good morning to former senator assistant director Patrick Sproul. Good morning. Okay, Director. So I wanted to follow up. So you said that Act 8790, which allows for the limited local purpose identification cards and operation license, it's still in effect. we are still issuing those licenses. Outline to me some of the qualifications and how that program has been going and also have it has it had an 1:41:52 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance impact a positive impact on traffic accidents and insured more insured drivers on the road. Senator the the limited purpose driver's license is still being issued because it's a license that's issued to everyone not just a small segment of the population and it was done primarily because the difference is if okay so let me explain if you need a real id for example you have to meet certain qualifications such as you have to have a lawful status a social security card and all proof of social security or and two proof of physical address however if you don't regardless of your status and you don't have a social security card, you only have one proof of physical address, you will get a license anyway. So before, whether you were born here or not, or undocumented or not, if you didn't have all of the documents, you were denied a license. Now you have an opportunity to get one, regardless. As far as traffic accidents or incidents, we really don't have, I don't have any way of measuring who is committing accidents or not. That will have to be a coordinated coordinated effort between the police department and probably officer highway safety if we receive those those um those numbers because those numbers don't come back to us okay thank you um real quickly i wanted to go to the highway user tax and i want you to clarify this for me when you buy a vehicle and you first register it you pay a highway use of tax of what 16 cents per pound I senator I don't know what the tax is all I know is that the BMV we verify that it is indeed paid we have the ability to verify if it's paid IRB is responsible for ensuring that the correct amount is collected. Okay. And it's paid one time when you have the vehicle. In other words, every year you go to renew for your vehicle registration, you don't pay that tax again. It's only paid once. Am I correct? Correct. Good. So the highway user tax, you're hearing it from the director of the motor vehicle, is a tax that's paid one time. No matter how long you own that vehicle, as long as you're the owner you pay that tax just once if you have the vehicle for 25 years you pay that tax just once and you're hearing it from the director of the bureau of motor vehicles okay i want to go quickly now um to i know you had had an issue with the fraudulent the scams text messages um has that been fixed what's the update on that so um so far i have not heard of any reports or seen any because i got it myself uh because we did report it to the bureau of information technology who did report it through their um their channels and um i noticed that that message has ceased okay good um quickly now i wanted to go um if i didn't know if my time was called um 1:44:14 mr chair if i can just wrap up yes senator you may go ahead the unregistered vehicle you mentioned that the lost revenues can be up to potentially 1.5 million i know that's an enforcement issue you report it to the VIPD. Any updates on that and what we need as legislators to be able to ensure the unregistered vehicles are reduced on the road? Anything that we need to hear about that and what we can do as legislators to assist the Bureau of Motor Vehicles? 1:46:13 As far as BMV is concerned, I don't want to speak for the police department, but we all agree it's an enforcement issue, and that's basically all I can say about the issue. We have done public information and education, we have done, you know, we have a Facebook page, we have signs in the office, etc. And every month, you know, we still see steady the same amount, you know, up and down different people, you know, for whatever their reason, would not register the vehicle. Another thing that we are seeing, I don't know, maybe we can address this too, is the Virgin Islands Code said that irrespective of your registration deadline, so let's say your registration ends today, June 1, you do have until the end of the month with no late fees to to register your vehicle so everybody comes at the end of the month you know and so that might be a you know a little 30 seconds yeah so that that's that's what we're saying as well so it's a whole bunch of the you know things here and there that i feel that we probably could together look at the um legislation and try to tighten up and to see if a little bit of this and a little bit of that would help all right thank you and you know congratulations on an awesome job i took and vouched like the chairman mentioned um to renew your driver's license is um is a much quicker process and um time you know it took me maybe 30 minutes um to get mine renewed and so that was pretty good i i went to st john um some of the drivers in st thomas doesn't know that you probably can go to st john but i went up there and congratulations on meeting your goal your target goal for the revenues that's always good to know that you're gonna meet your goal because you you bring in about a little bit more than 10 million dollars so that's awesome and that's good to know thank you mr. chair for the time thank you very much senator Fonseca senator bloody you recognize your point of information thank you thank you mr. 1:46:55 chair I'm director McIntosh I do not agree with arm I didn't find a fee for coming at the end of the month but I think what you can do and should do because a lot of people don't notice you can come in much earlier I think you need to let people know exactly how early you can come in to register a car even though your car is due like this month how early can you come to register a car if you have to leave the island or territory or whatever I think you can advertise that to people so they can come earlier to register I think you need to speak to that very quick thank you so much. May I? Yes Senator this disagreement is very healthy, I like that. But you could come three months before to register your vehicle and renew your driver's license. You can do that online as well at bmv.vi.gov. You could register three months before online as well. And it makes it a whole lot easier if you do. And the reason why I stress that, because I honestly believe that maybe that's a deterrent, because i'm telling you the end of the month is very very very taxing you know it's a whole lot of work you 1:49:08 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance know well the staff is up to the challenge don't get me wrong but i keep saying you know we we got to remember the human side of people um and so we don't to lessen the frustration on everybody else the customers you know that's only reason why i was suggesting that i'm not agreeing with any rate increase either but we're trying to find ways to make the process simpler Yeah, that's a 30-year issue. For three decades we have battled that, trying to get people in. It's just a mindset and a discipline concern, but for 30 years we have had the same argument about where you see at the end of the month is where you see the infusion of vehicles and it's gotten better. I remember days that the lines used to be all the way out back onto the highway because of all the vehicles that was lined up just to be able to be inspected on those last three days. Dr. Joseph, you're recognized for your point of information. 1:50:39 Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, a pleasant good day to everyone. I really want to also commend you and your team. My question is, and it's a follow up to the previous, previous, the gentleman from Savant who says he's from Bovoni, question, is that he, I wanted to ask, where are the IDs printed for your driver's license and your real ID? In one of our offices, Senator, it's a real ID. 1:51:08 And so based on our security measures, right, it's not printed, it's not printed real time simply because we have to double check everything that is done. But where, where is the final one printed? It's printed in the Virgin Islands, but it's not in the office. It's not in the office in which district? I prefer not to say. I prefer not to say. Because it used to be printed also in the St. Thomas, St. John district. Everybody knows. 1:51:43 No, it was never printed in the St. Thomas, St. John. It was never? Not as long as I was here, no. I think that's an operation security issue. The director have indicated she don't wish to make that public at this time. Senator Fredericks, you're recognized for your five minutes. Good morning. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Pleasant good morning, testifiers, Director McIntosh. Good morning. My colleagues, my wonderful staff, central staff, listening and viewing audience. 1:52:15 I'm excited to actually speak to this group because I think this is one of those efficient agencies in our government. they actually cost us less and as everyone knows I'm a cost freak I think you should be commended for bringing in at least 3.5 million dollars in additional revenues to this government and you should still be happy you should be able to have a place a permanent place a home you know bringing in that kind of revenue so whatever we could do I could do to help definitely lean on us that i also want to acknowledge um a very special person on your staff miss mediel smith who is the mother of my god child michelle smith who i am immensely proud of i bought her her first bike she invited me to her baptism this is a very personal relationship and i want people to understand if we invest in athletics in the virgin islands they can be some very important returns to us now everyone is running around praising michelle smith which we should but keep in mind there are more michelle smiths out there and you're just waiting for an opportunity so we have to stay focused on our goal colleagues all right let's get to business now director let's talk about dollars and cents i'm taking out the big bible here and i wanted to talk about changes in numbers here we got professional services the biggest one i saw was omni system what do they provide how can we get that number down from 299. omni systems is our contractor that does our processor is our process software and it's probably not going to go down it probably 1:52:50 is going to go up because as we try to improve on our services there is a cost meaning that the maintenance call, like for example, we're now adding the point system to the software. Somebody has to maintain that, so that may be a little bit more next year too. So as long as we add services, that's why you're seeing that. And we're hoping within the next maybe two or three years, it will level off as we've completed all our updates. But yeah. Okay, we'll let that one slide then. All right, let's see, security services. 1:54:38 Last fiscal year was a little low, So $24,180, now we're proposing almost double that, $43,280, what's going on there? Are we acting up at the DMV? No, we are not. But can I ask Ms. Lloyd, the CFO, to answer that? Sure. No, that was the increase of the vendor, they didn't increase from last fiscal year, so that's why it went up. 1:55:09 They did something differently or something? No. So why they just went up on a price like that? I'm not sure, but that's... So we have to do a new RFP? So that one is actually through a supply contract to property and procurement. And those are the people that pick up our monies and stuff. That's what that is. Okay. I could do it. I mean, no problem. Let's see. Travel seems to be popping up three times here, different categories, and it's always going in the direction I don't like to see. Why are we going up on travel? 1:55:37 We, traditionally at the BMV, we didn't travel. we didn't go to conferences and and stuff like that and what I have found personally that we miss out on a lot when we don't do that so we've made a decision for the last two years that we are going to start to be involved in some of the national conferences and networking because those we meet some great people who will help us along the way as a territory right I'm not gonna knock that that's a very good point in terms of 1:56:05 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance insurance of course this is a that glaring one last fiscal year was zero. One minute. Now we're at $75,000, just bullet point quickly, time is running out. Why is it $75,000? Is that commercial general liability? No, that was for employees that were out. I'm sorry. That was for employees that were out and that was the BNV portion to pay. Yeah, the health insurance. Health insurance. Yes. you guys didn't have any donated leave 30 seconds in terms of uh this is another question outside of the numbers abandoned vehicle ids and fines is there any way to help us identify some of these vehicles that are thrown out over the place you guys have the information on those vehicles to to put it on a database so we could identify who the owners of these abandoned vehicles are so we could clean up the place yeah it's happening right now yeah we work with the abandoned task force and we provide them with that information. 1:56:51 Okay, also I've noticed a lot of vehicles that have, Mr. Chair, please, a lot of vehicles that are unregistered and registered that have a tag, a current tag, but obviously you could tell they weren't inspected. They don't have proper lights. They're really banged up. What are we doing to reduce that? How are they getting a tag? So I can't really say that they want to inspect it, but remember anything happens after inspection. No, no, they don't have windshields and all this stuff. 1:57:40 I mean, so, I mean, they got tape all over the back and everything. I mean, I see a lot of these vehicles on the streets. I'm like, how are they getting through? Because I have to go through the process of properly getting my vehicle inspected. So, someone is getting tags that we know. So, what are we doing to make sure they're not getting these tags? Is there any way to inventory this? Well, we'll... It's happening. It's there. so um senator i personally you know i'm not at the the inspection all day long right i mean maybe that's something that we need to look into if you want if you're suggesting that but we're not you know i can't i don't have an answer i really don't have an honest answer you're not saying because i because you're talking what i'm saying is that somebody's doing something wrong right but i can't say that because i'm not saying there's something and so we need to find out how a vehicle could be on our road legally when we see obviously they don't have what it's needed to be a legal vehicle on the road your point is well taken okay so I'm just saying let's let's see if we could figure it out but it's there thank you very much mr. chair appreciate the time thank you very much Senator Frederick director in respect to of course you talk about paper reduction how are you addressing the paper reduction which I totally agree with I think a third of our space is occupied a lot of times with paper file boxes here there just just a lot of paper so I definitely support paper reduction so for example if someone comes to the BMV and well when you come right you get a receipt a paper receipt the ERP which is a system that we use to collect revenues have a a feature where we can email you the receipt so we make it mandatory for the employees to request or ask if you would like to have a paper I mean an email receipt everybody doesn't but who and a lot of people do so that's that's done the major reduction though comes in the forms so you know we have at the BMV we have 20 maybe 25 30 forms and it's like a dollar fifty to print a form so So instead of us having you to bring a form with your information that we already have, 1:58:08 right? You have to complete the form. Then we scan the form into your profile so we can keep it on file and you know it's saving the cloud. Plus we have redundant backups so we probably won't have it for a very, very long time. And then you sign the form and then we trash the form. So to eliminate that, the software is being re-engineered, well it was re-engineered so So that your data will automatically be transferred to the same form electronically and all you have to do is look at a screen that we're going to show you. You verify the information is correct and we have an electronic keypad signature pad where you sign on the pad and that form is now automatically saving your profile. So you don't have to bring a form, you don't have to print a form for you. Now there are people who may still want to fill out a form because you're sending someone to do business on their behalf, etc., you still have forms available because it's going to be online. But the owners will mostly be on you to print a form and bring it in. So we are trying to avoid printing a lot of forms in the office. So that's basically what the concept is. Okay, great. All right. So the next four speakers, it will be in the form of Senator Lewis, Senator Carla J. Joseph, Senator Curvelli, and Senator DeGraff. Senator Lewis, you recognize your five minutes at this time. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Good morning colleagues, good morning testifiers, good morning to the wonderful people of the Virgin Islands. Director McIntosh on page seven of the post editor's report. I see you have two positions removed and you created a chief CFO position. Has that position been filled? Yes. Okay great. And has what was the duties different from the fiscal officer to the CFO? The fiscal officer's responsibility was basically I call it mechanic you know fill up papers process to the ERP, etc. The CFO's responsibility is now to basically set the budget, create the budget, make sure the monies are spent as they should, the first line of approval before it gets to me, verify that the funds are available, make sure the reports are done in a timely manner, represent the agency with OMB and the Department of Finance, provide any information that is requested. Prepare, like I said, reports and yeah, make sure our budget has spent as they should, I mean, yeah, and projections. 2:00:28 That's basically what the CFO does, everything. Okay, and let's look at page nine of the post auditor's report. I see there you have, and our revenues. Let's look at personalized plates. There's an uptick from 2023, 2024 actuals, all the actuals 2:03:18 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance are up and in 2025 thus far we look like we're going to exceed, right? Thus far, yes. Thus far, what do you think is attributed to this? To the increase in it? From last year? Yeah. No, from fiscal year 20, 24. 23, it went up, 24, it went up. 25, it might slightly decrease. So, 23 and 24, primarily, it was because of the emancipation plates. When people had to bring in the plates, yeah, that was a significant increase. So, I'm not certain what's transferring in the Bureau, but now that you're here in front of me, what's really going on? 2:03:56 you're taking away personalized plates and you only want them to utilize the government personalized plates or how is that let's have some clarity here today okay i think you're talking about the personalized versus the vanity plates so the vanity plates um are those that are issued by organizations right the action approval through the bmv we have to ensure that it meets a certain criteria tasteful etc and um for me i have the cancer center plates on my vehicle exactly so So once those are approved, the vendor has to be approved, the quality of the plate has to be approved because our plate meets a national standard, right? Yes, yes. 2:04:31 Fine. What we saw is it was an uptick in plates that had names and numbers just as the BNB plate. We had to take away, like, for example, we had 3SAM23. It was no fault of the customer. I guess it was a system that was used back then. And there's a bunch of confusion among law enforcement, which is the correct plate, which is the correct number, et cetera. So I'm saying all of that to say it was meant to standardize. That's all it was meant to do, right? So if you go to a cancer society, for example, I don't know what their call sign is, but- CK. CK, so it would be CK and a number. They are no longer allowed to use- One minute. if you need if you want names on your plate then you get one from the bmv the other agencies are allowed to use their their letters and a number standardized i don't want to debate it with you but on the floor like this but they're paying for it so one minute my cancer center plate and i support in the cancer institute and i pin additional to the dmv and i want to name glory one glory two glory three and my vehicles i mean like but remember it's a program that is designed and managed by the BMV so for standardization that's the um the process that we decided to use again because it was um it was a lot of confusion and it was really getting it was out of hand nobody knew who had what so we had to do some kind of standardization let's give me one last 30 seconds uh the vitima has uh some grant funding to assist agencies with cyber assessments have you taken advantage of this are you aware of it i'm aware and we did get funding in 23 ending in 24 we did finish our cyber security assessment beautifully wonderfully and we are fine yes time so you have taken advantage of hard in the 2:05:10 infrastructure you're working on that we've done we've done all of that okay good with bit thank you mr chairman I'll come back for another burning question and another thing oh thank you very much Senator Lewis for your line of questions director in regards to your KPIs who's ultimately responsible for tracking monitoring your KPIs mr. Cricky is our compliance auditor he does a daily monitoring and tracking and then report it back to me. Okay and I see that you are your seven out of nine KPIs seems to be in order. What's going on with the other two? The other two is online so again we are maybe a couple percentage points away from meeting our goal but coupled with the advertisement like I said we are big on our Facebook page we have a newsletter we did a special edition of the newsletter in office myself and some of the staff going out talking to people about online we still have people who prefer you know to come into the office so yeah how is the morale of BMV employees at this time what grade would you give it give them let's get a 1 to 10 yes ma'am I would I would say an eight. Yeah, I would say an eight. Okay, that's good. What are the biggest challenge or concern that they bring to your attention, they're concerned with? 2:07:16 In St. Croix's our facility. Yeah, it's our facility. And St. Thomas? And St. John too. St. Thomas? Yeah, St. Croix and St. John is our facility. St. Thomas, I would say it's a combination of stuff and most of it is staffing and flow, which is why we're trying to hire more people for the St. Thomas office. Okay, very well, thank you. At this time, the chair will recognize Senator Carla J. Joseph, you recognize for your five minutes. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I have some questions to ask as well, and it deals with the operational, but I'm hoping that the chairperson of the Committee on Government Operations, Veteran Affairs, and Consumer Protection will call you in so we could have at least a status update. 2:08:46 We haven't had one for a bit, and it's definitely needed, especially when I'm asking questions regarding the Real ID. So I'm hoping that would happen sooner than later. Let me just ask you a couple of questions, and it deals with primarily the budget. that I want to focus on that. You recall that in, I think it was in 2023, we passed some monies, a percentage supposed to go towards from the personalized license plate for the new 175th Emancipation Commemoration that's supposed to go to the VI Historical Commemorative Fund. it's here on page nine what percentage how many allies in plates was sold would you be able to give us that i can't but not right now okay uh through the chair kindly provide that information um for each uh fiscal year i will need it for fiscal year 2023 2024 and of course our current fiscal year 2025 that would be very helpful now uh do you know how much money was transferred to the virgin islands historical commemorative fund based on let me get this act out buddy uh based on the act act 8690 do you know how much money 2:09:36 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) 11 of 21 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance was transferred for each each fiscal year yes we do you do yeah okay can you kindly provide that information for the record I'm sorry oh yes miss Lloyd So I kindly proceed, thank you. Yes, for fiscal year 2023, it was $358,420. And for fiscal year 2024, it was $234,487. And as of May of fiscal year 25 is 18,761.55 cents. 18,000, I mean, 8,000, 18,000 761.55 cents. Okay, so our post auditor report on page eight, nine is accurate, just making sure, because they have it listed here as well. I wanted to also ask you, relative to your operating budget, you have an operating budget for your personnel cost in the amount of and this is just a general fund I'm focusing on for of two two million three hundred seven dollars nineteen cents is that sufficient for you for a general fund yes yes okay and with your vacancies coming on how much do you think that you will need to fill your vacant position not including the fringe keep them separate the vacant and the fringe separate how much would you need for personnel and then how much you would need for for your vacant position for your fringe mr. chairman please hold my time yeah we're looking in the book yeah mr. chairman please hold my time please hold the senator's time while they look for the information you can move on to another question okay you want me to move on to the next budget question, Mr. Chairman. Okay, I can do so. Also, I wanted to follow up. We have the figure. 2:11:53 You have it right now? Yes. Okay, good. Ms. Michelle will respond. Okay. Simonia Michelle, General Fund, $168,705. $168. Yes. Uh-huh. The last three figures. $705. 705 and that's just personnel and your fringe fringe is 90 161 161 okay thank you and that's to fill how many vacancies this is for four vacancies and this is one minute general fund okay okay um with the i want to go back to the personnel personalized license plate and i know you're going to provide that information to the chair but I wanted to ask if you have a difference between the personalized license plate and the commemorative license plate is it all of the monies for the personalized license 30 seconds when the percentage which was about $15 if I remember the act I should because that was my amendment $15 for each one sold that went into the commemorative correct yes okay all right so i i also want to before i i and i want to uh i really commend you and your team i too went to renew my driver's license and also my vehicle registration last week and it was very very time and mr chairman i'm closing out Thank you so much, Kenny, was very precise. I enjoyed the experience, and I've gone there undercover as well, undercover in disguise, and the staff you have there are really professional. So I really want to commend your staff, commend your two employees of the year. The only thing is the staff said they would like to see former Senator Patrick Sproul out there because he's located in a different area, 2:13:31 but they spoke so well about him, and they would like to see him out there working with them in the trenches, as I saw before. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. That seemed like a backhand compliment, right? Thank you so much, Senator Joseph. Real quickly, point of information, senator lewis yes thank you mr chairman director mcintosh you you have indicated that seven out of your nine key performance indicators were met in fy 2025. yes in your testimony right can you specify which two kpis fell short and uh what corrective actions are being taken for fy 2026 online services yeah yeah thank you thank you we'll go on to the next senator which will be senator VLA I saw that in your FY24 you expended about $23,000 in overtime time and FY25 thus far you're trending significantly downwards about three thousand dollars what what is being a eight to five operation where we are utilizing overtime that's on a weekend coverage and after all coverage weekend after hours and yesterday you know yesterday we had a significant number of people employees have to stay up to five you know if you're in the building at at four o'clock you know um it's nothing we can do but serve you so every now and then we don't have that happen a lot but that last year was basically um weekend and um we can coverage 2:15:43 you know we had to do that very well uh senator bailey you recognize for your five minutes thank you that's it thank you mr cheer and once again good morning to the people of the virgin a good move in terms of trying to implement a commercial driver's license do you expect that to be a revenue generator yes senator you have any projections none no okay so how um how are you thinking about that that you give all the existing uh commercial drivers uh 90 days or a period of days in order to come in and begin the process or is this going to require testing etc or it's going to require um training and testing and and it's not an it's a lengthy process um well well lengthy in terms of the individual and unfortunately it's not a system where we could grandfather people in no i'm just gonna ask you that because your truck drivers have been driving for 30 and 40 years 40 years who are now going to say why should i have to come in so how are we going to be able to bridge that gap that they understand um is just more than driving their house or safety issues etc correct so and that's where training comes in um and so we our plan is to basically train train these um individuals so that they'll be able to help you help them through the process unfortunately um for us i just want to begin to to probe the question as to how we're going to be able to bridge the gap in reference to you finding a permanent spot because the the complaints inquiry have really been location location and um sometimes the modular units not working the way they're supposed to whether it's ac etc and um the ladies and and guys 2:17:38 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance are working in the environment they do a really good job i know you go there they're very receptive they work hard to get you out um i heard the question about the hovenza training school and you said that there was an issue with electricity and the wires which we expect but about have you received a quote as to what it would cost to refurbish that particular site with electricity plumbing etc to be able to move motor vehicle there yes senator we received the quote what's the quote it's it brought us to almost eight million dollars that's the quote we received so you had a quote to build a building for three million and a quote to refurbish a building for eight million yes okay that one didn't make any sense at all um but that doesn't make sense i'll talk to you offline about that you know what the issue that i have and i can move on whenever this government rent a building from somebody the court to refurbish that building seems to be reasonable but when it comes to this government to refurbish their own building the court is astronomical but we'll rent out that same building to somebody on the commercial side and they'll refurbish it for a couple hundred thousand dollars and and have it running and i and I'll deal with PMP with that later. 2:19:32 In terms of actuals, page five of the post-addage report, that are your actuals up to May 31st or do you have actuals up to June? Well, what actuals do you have? Food and revenue. Yeah, we have up until May 31st. Oh, just until? You haven't run June as yet. Okay, okay. Based on the monies that you're spending thus far, Are you going to utilize the full allotment that you receive for FY25? Yes, Senator, we would. 2:20:54 For personnel? Yes. Well, for personnel, no. We may have some gaps, because remember we have vacancies, so we will have a little overage, yeah. Okay, so what you're projected in FY26 for four vacant positions? It will be four, yes. And what are those four positions? One is compliance, another compliance auditor. and three customer service. Okay, do those positions exist right now? Are they vacant right now? Yes, yes, Senator. So are you trying to recruit individuals to those positions? Yes, we did, the compliance auditors, we're gonna interview tomorrow. We've already chosen one customer service and we have two PRs outstanding for the other two. 2:21:27 Okay, so by the time FY26 hit, you expect to have no vacancies? No vacancies, yes. Okay, and it's included in your budget? Yes, Senator. At a hundred percent? Yes, Senator. Okay. Your collections. I'm looking at your personalized license plate. So you're projecting a slight increase in collections of fiscal year 2026? Yes, well, yes. Yes, we are. And you're projecting that for this fiscal year, you're going to meet the 2.194 million? 2:22:09 Yes, we are. As you're only up to 1.2, at the end of May you have four months, okay. The Peace Officer Training, what is that fund? It's for the POST, the Peace Officer Standard and Training. So the Virgin Islands Code said that for most of our services, $2 goes to POST to fund that agency. So that's what that's for. Okay. And you think you're going to realize that amount? Yes, Senator. 2:22:47 Your projection for the Transportation Trust Fund. You want to meet the 7.3? Yes, yes we will. Okay, do you have any ideas as to how- One minute. We could be able to limit the number of individuals that are driving without registered cars or the number of commercial vehicles that come on island and just go straight to work sites and don't come to DMP? Is there a need for, especially in the commercial part? We have companies that are bringing in a lot of sub-dump trucks, everything, and a lot of them driving on the road. Should there be a penalty for those? Or is there any way that through ODR or through any other government entities- 30 seconds. Hiring these contractors that are part of the contract that they're going to sign with PMP, that it includes language that all vehicles brought into the island must be registered with DMV? 2:23:15 Currently, I personally think the system is working well. Let me tell you why. Because we have the special permit provisions where the vehicle cannot leave the port until they receive a permit from us, which means we have to ensure they pay the road tax, et cetera. And the shipping companies are complying with that? Yeah, they are complying. OK. We have a little hiccup here and there. But for the most part, they are complying. So that, if you notice, we're not seeing a lot of vehicles with firing plates like we used to, right? The issue is, after they leave the BMV, now they're in our system, right? We give them a permit to go get the vehicle to come back to us. If they don't return, enforcement now has the information available. So they know who these vehicles belong to because they're already in the system. 2:24:17 So I would say the second part of that is we really have to beef up enforcement. But you're not over the enforcement component? We're not, no. We provide the information every month. We provide the information so that they will have it if they need it to do the enforcement. So are you provided to the traffic division of the police department? We actually provided to the commissioner's office. And that is done in writing? That is not so. Is it documented that it said that we had X amount of vehicles that received this special permit to leave the port, there was supposed to register within 60 days, they did not, they belonged to company X? 2:24:57 So we don't separate it out by, you know, the vehicle coming. We just send all vehicles. It's not like a special identifier. So all unregistered vehicles, that would be included, yes. So that's a thought. We could do that too, yes. We could run the 2:25:36 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) 13 of 21 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance report like that. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Senator Viola. My thought on that is that I think the Delta or the issue of concern may be the payment of of the road tax because these vehicles are brought in for government use and government projects there may be a waiver generated as a result of that so we we should do a a complete deep dive and just to make sure that we're covering all the bases under that particular issue because I think there may be a Delta there you agree arms I don't know are you seeing that those those vehicles those heavy equipment vehicles even if they're brought in for government use projects and government use projects that they're paying users, the tax users fee, the road tax? Well, I can't tell you right now. No, it's kind of hard. I have to run the numbers to tell. But I've never really seen a lot of requests for waiving of any road tax. I've not seen a lot of that. Well, it wouldn't come to you. I mean, obviously those might be generated between IRB and you know, through ODR and whoever might be responsible for those, because there's a tremendous amount of heavy vehicles we know are imported to work on these job sites. They don't have any license plates on them. The low boys, the trackles and tractors and all those, you know, dump trucks and stuff, there's no license plate on a lot of those, so, you know, so I'm not sure that they're paying it. It's something that we should perhaps take a deeper dive on and just see what's happening that space okay point of information senator fonseca yes thank you mr chair um director mackintosh your lease um in the tutu park mall i think it's up june of next year well time goes by fast and didn't realize you've been out there since 2021 um the the former headquarters down across from Pueblo um what are your plans that that site is scheduled for demolition and once demolished um the plan current plan is to rebuild on that site you have any time frame when you're gonna go back down there no senator you you you had no rent there that's government property right yes government property who's who's in charge of it ODR or who is is it a FEMA funded DSR project or where's the funding coming from it's a FEMA funded project okay but there's no time frame when when you're going to move back not not at this time senator okay thank you thank you for the time mr chair thank you very much senator fonseca senator projects you recognize your point of information thank you very much mr chair director mackintosh with respect to this the discussion we were just having with the chair 2:26:43 about vehicles coming in that are not registered as a insurance broker i could tell you that was a indeed a problem on our end because some of those vehicles were involved in accidents and cause property damage and some cases personal injuries and they weren't legally supposed to be on the road so how do we ensure that the next crew that's coming in because we've got you know a whole bunch of construction people coming in what are we going to do to make sure that doesn't become a problem again um we can do we can do some more enforcement with um with dlc and the police department and the reason i said that is because according to the special permit law if the shipping company releases a vehicle without getting a special permit i think it's like fifteen hundred dollar fine per vehicle and so maybe that could be a way to curb that if if they are not reporting or not of their release in a vehicle without a permit so we only get whenever they come to us you know to come to get the permit that's when we know we only know what we know but the permit doesn't require insurance true but as far as enforcement is concerned a collection as as to your question right we will not be able to provide the information if we don't know so we just need to close that gap we need to close that there's insurance yes Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 2:29:03 Thank you very much, Senator Frederick. Before we go to the next senator, which will be Senator DeGraff, in the conversation with the CDL, the VICDL, is that being done on, that's a commercial driver's license, is that being in conjunction with the Virgin Islands Office of Highway Safety? Yes, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, yes. Is there any funding that's being made available to support the upstart of that? so for the coordinators position the person who to put it together that's from the ARPA funds however because traditionally we're not part of the federal CDL program that funding is not available to us and have you Do you receive any other funds, whether by ARPA, CARES, which has really been, should have been depleted, or the Office of Insular Affairs? 2:30:31 Have there been any funding that come to you for any particular initiative? No, Senator. Oh, okay. All right. The graph you recognize for your five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, colleagues. Good morning, testifiers, all of you listening and present. Director, your team, you know, I heard that they say you're operating so-so. They're totally, totally wrong. Your team operating outstanding. Thank you. Okay, and the money you're generating for the territory and everything, excellent. Now, how much is your ask for 2026, the total? General for? 2:31:29 For 20... 26. 26. Our ask for the general fund is $3 million. Let us look together. You got to look for it? Okay, so you have it? Yes. Go ahead, Ms. Lloyd with the answer. Sure. Keep your papers ready, Ms. Lloyd. I got a series of questions for you. yes for the general fund it's three million five hundred and ninety six thousand three hundred and sixty five dollars okay so that's less than 25 budget how come So, anybody in BMV receive any wage increases for 25? 2:32:08 Yeah. Yes. They have. They have, but then you're total among Ghanong in person and fringe. Because we are not expecting any raises for our next fiscal year, because they all was received this fiscal year. I'm sorry, can you give your 2:33:03 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance name, please? I'm sorry, Linda Lloyd. Yeah, she's a remote right now. Our reporter is remote. Okay, Linda Lloyd. Okay, so how much personnel do you have, total simonia michelle we have 63 personnel 63 okay so that's up from 25 um and people receive wage increases in 25 that is correct senator everyone yes okay um is there any retro owed no there isn't any retro okay good so you receive wage increases your Your allotment in 25 was personal, 2,373,062. So your total came to 3,656,910. So how can we get on down? If everyone receive wage increases in 25, how does your overall personal fringe go down? What are we missing? Your act is $3,596,000. Your allotment for, according to Act 89-16 for real motor vehicles is $3,656,000. The reason why it went down, because we were budgeted last fiscal year for the increase, the retro increase, so that's why it was high. 2:34:02 Okay, last year you had 52 positions, and you had four transfers to the general fund. That is correct. Right, so now this year you have 63. So was it 52 plus four made it 56 for this year? No. It's 52 overall. We have a total of 51 positions on the general fund, and we have 12 on the BMV fund. So that makes it 63. 2:34:39 Okay, okay, BMV fund. Okay, okay. That's what you pick up more often. Okay, good. Now, at one point, you put out olive branch to Taxi Commission in terms of working out there by you. Have you taken advantage of that? They don't have to because they're back in their regular spot and from what I visited and and they seem to be doing fine. One minute. 2:35:14 Okay, I knew you offered assistance, so I just wanted to make sure. Yes, I did. Okay, now can I have your actual, what was your last allotment that you received? The total amount, and then I want to be broken down into personal fringe, and so forth. For this fiscal year? For this fiscal year, your last allotment, and what time frame was it, one month? Yes, our last allotment, you want it break down? 2:35:45 Well, give me the full amount was $2,742,572. 2,007,402,572, 79 cents. That's 75% received so far. Oh, okay, so you're saying your total is 2,742,579. That's the total of all your allotments? 2:36:17 That's fine, yes. Okay, so your latest allotment was received when? The third one, or the? No, no, no, I'm gonna get to the actuals now. You just gave me the overall total allotment that you received. The overall total allotment, yes. So that you didn't receive in a lump sum? Was that broken out? No, no, it was break down. So how much was your last allotment? Okay. If you have it broken out that way. Yes, I do. Okay, and then I'll go into the actuals and then I'll be completed. Yes, the last allotment received was June 12th. And the personnel was $197,000. No, okay, before you get into the actuals, the total amount was received. And June 12th, 25th, how much did you receive? 2:36:50 304 thousand seven hundred and thirty dollars and 31 cents okay now can i get the personal yes personal is 197 747.26 okay and french is uh 106 983 dollars Okay, supplies? You don't get that off your general fund? No. Supplies, other services? No, no. 2:37:41 Just personnel and fringe. Okay, just personnel and fringe. Okay, 197. Yeah, they gone down. So just from the general fund. So before I close out, how much is actually picked up on the BMV fund? How much was allotted? Of the personnel and fringe? As of the last allotment received was May 8th for BNV, the overall was $83,330. 2:38:21 Okay, BNV fund. Okay, and no GS employees? No. Okay. GS? Yes, General Service, what do they have on their contract? Yes, Simone and Michelle, we have three GS employees. Three GS, okay. Two of the positions are filled and, of course, one is vacant. Okay, one vacant, okay, two filled, one vacant. And vacant is filled is at what, 50%, 100%? 50%. 2:38:55 50%. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Senator DeGraff. And in terms of what are you paying for utilities? Utilities is what we paid so far. yeah it's uh $75,867.25 that's utilities thus far may 31st okay and are you part of the single payer utilities uh yes you are okay so that money is taken off the top it is all right i think that um completes this run i'll do a two minutes recess and then we'll come back on the law for any burning questions. The Committee of Budget Appropriations and Finance stands at recess for two minutes. so do 2:39:25 Thank you. so Thank you. [2 such phrases repeated 12 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 2:41:37 the committee of budget appropriation and finance is out of recess and we have before us today the Bureau of Motor Vehicles before we real quickly before we go for burning questions by my colleagues without revealing any operation security can you provide some reassurance in regards to our cyber security of the bureaus senator I can preliminary like summary but can I please ask miss smith our IT manager to answer that question sure smith So, for our cyber security assessment, we work with Please, please give your name, please put your name on the record. 2:48:07 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance I'm going to close, I'm listening to you. Mireya Smith. We work in conjunction with BIT for our cyber security assessment. We had a contractor that did the assessment and they provided a report to us. And then we attacked basically all the issues that we had. and we completed, well, we utilized all our funding that we had available through the grant. Okay, very well. So we're pretty comfortable that, we know that there's always these cybersecurity concerns lurking out there and phishing and everything else that's going on, but you're pretty comfortable at this point that you do have the necessary mechanism in place to protect our system? 2:49:04 Yes, we're very comfortable that we have the mechanisms in place. Excellent. Any burning questions from my colleagues? Senator Bladier, you recognize your burning question? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Director McIntosh, let me inquire in respect to the CDL license and all that's involved in actually getting that accomplished. Of course, the Department of Transportation also will be involved in that. And I know you say you don't have any estimate as yet for that project what the time frame number one you anticipate having that completed and is it going to be within next fiscal year and if so do you have a assessment of how many big trucks etc large vehicle that will require drivers to drive those vehicles moving forward and an estimated amount in revenue that we will anticipate at the result of fulfilling that task Can you speak to that, please? I do have that figure, Senator, but not readily available. We have it, you know. Ms. Mitchell will be able to provide it to us, but I can't give it to you, like, right now. Okay, and that's a huge lift. It's not that simple. It's a huge lift, honestly. 2:49:52 Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. Senator Blyden, any other burning? Senator Bello, you recognize? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. McIntosh, in reference to going back to the special permit, because I'm just trying to think as to how we could capture those funds that are not coming to the department and also to make sure that those vehicles become insured. Do you believe you need an enforcement component? Yes, Senator. 2:51:07 What's your idea around that? An enforcement component at your entity? Yes, yes, Senator. An enforcement component at our entity for, just to ensure that vehicles that need, should have had a special permit coming to us, so that at least A, we could have them in the system, and those who didn't come, because we would be able to have our enforcement officers, primarily at the port. That's why the vehicles come in, so if we had somebody there, we would have been able to have an accurate count. Now, we do get reports from the shipping companies as to the vehicles that are shipped in, right? We do, I have to say in all fairness, they've sent it to us. So we need to be able to compare what we've received to what actually came off the ship. 2:51:39 I was thinking about follow-up, so that in the event that they don't come back to the bureau that somebody will be calling to follow up to make sure that they're complying with all the rules and regs of the Virgin Islands to include insurance making sure that the vehicle is licensed and registered yes in enforcement will definitely help with that does that need to be somebody that has that goes to the Academy or can we create a position yeah peace officer or can you just create a separate position where that person that's that's all a person does they they coordinate to the port they follow up in terms of making phone calls to make sure that these entities come back in and then we tweak the law to put in some fines if they don't comply after blah blah blah they'll be assess a fine of X amount yes I think we can have another you know I don't see us needing a full police department or police officer, but some of the peace officer status can work as well, yes. 2:52:26 Okay, if you could give it to some more thought. I'm thinking about something as immediate as possible. Some of my peace officers will take a while to go to the training. But I'm thinking if you just have, I don't know what name you'd call it, but a person is stationed at the port. They go through all of the data and they follow up to make sure that every vehicle that receive a special permit is going to come and register at BMV. I mean, they get all the information, they get the name, et cetera, and then they follow up. They check to see the 30-day period expired. Was this vehicle registered? 2:53:35 If not, they give them a call. They say, hey, you need to come. Because that's in a position to pay for yourself. Yeah, but so if you're thinking in that terms, any one of our administrative positions could do that. Okay. So we need to look at the job description for our administrative positions, and yes, we can do that. Okay. Your position could do it, but do you need a position or you could utilize one of your present position? We can. We can utilize our present position. As a matter of fact, one of the things that we are going to do starting on Synchroi very soon is we're going to have someone stationed either at the port or in the building at IRB on Synchroi so that when you pay for your special permit, you don't have to go down to the bmv to get a special permit then go back to the port to get the vehicle and come back everything would be in one place so that person could either be which we were going to do irb but that person if you get a spot at the port right that person could be there as well so when you get off the um when you get your paperwork from the um the shipping company once you have your insurance you pay at irb that person is going to be right there to ensure that that occur yes okay thank you so much and i would suggest that you reassess the ability to use the old hovenza training building that we perhaps ask public works to give us a estimator so what it would actually cost because the amount that you are given is definitely um i i can't phantom where they came up with a number you know you didn't ask them to to to build a whole 2:54:08 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance new building so i just think a number of individuals are being quite uh ridiculous we were just privy to a meeting in which um national guard yesterday in which we were not able to spend some 20 million dollars so they knew aviation building because the cost was so high that the federal government didn't allow us to proceed in that manner and they had to use the money for something and so we need to get a more reasonable amount and we'll see how we could push it through pmp or through public works so thank you so much mr. chair thank you very much senator VLA before we go to the next senator for his burning question which will be senator Frederick I want to ask you I know that there was some discussion in respect to the combination or combining of voters registration with BMV where are we within that discussion is that something that has been abundant tabled or is is there still a live discussion in respect to that? There's no live discussion, Senator. 2:56:07 We were prepared somewhat to assist in that effort but it's up to the election system. So you said there's no active discussion occurring there with that currently or? No, there's no active discussion. Has been abandoned? Can you say you were prepared, there were discussions being had about that, correct? Yes, there were discussions about that, but we haven't really heard anything lately. The last conversation was that they, I guess they had other focus, but that's not happening. Okay, very well. Senator Hubert Frederick, are you recognized? 2:56:39 Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, Director. to emphasize the complexity with this CDL law. Last storm we had, we had the same issue where they were recruiting drivers off the streets and they were driving up and now our streets in heavy equipment without a CDL license. We're trying to improve our situation here. What is going to prevent us from going through this right now because they're beginning to come to do these construction projects and you know we really need to make sure that we get get a good handle on that so if they are properly licensed they need to we need to know i referring to people on island or people who came in to drive they're going to be coming in to drive okay so if they come from another state that already has a cdl um we would be able to verify whether that's so and we will honor their stateside cdl temporarily reciprocity yes temporarily for any state for any state as long as they have a cdl um and if they don't have it they'll be restricted from driving if they don't have it they can go through the same process to get an endorsement like our um our local um drivers do thank you very much appreciate it mr thank you very much senator frederick that's senator every lowest you recognize for your burning question thank you mr chairman again god of good testifiers and to the people of the virgin islands as to the previous senator we do have legislation in place going through as it pertains to the cdl and the point system it's before legal council at this time uh so pretty soon we'll be hearing it um miss mcadosh your old home in service that building wasn't yours right 2:57:22 yes actually it was um from what i am yes it was when i say yours meaning there was a bmv lease yeah but i mean what's the status on it it's scheduled for the um it has to be demolished first so that we could rebuild and are you going you have funding for it already we have yes we do we have funding we have female funds female funds yes all right thank you that's it for me uh thank you very much senator uh lois senator colleges joseph you i'm sorry when are you are you clear on when well she indicated earlier that the inspection lane is still actively being used down there so there's uh they're unable to they're unable to do the demolition at this time we can't do the demolition with the um active um operation back there center college joseph you're recognized for your burning question thank you so much mr chairman am i allowed to only ask one question i have two I wanted to ask you about succession planning. 2:59:21 I don't think that's a conversation we have had so far, but I would love to understand if you've been looking at it and taking steps seriously. I know I see Mr. Cricky here. He might be the youngest on your executive team. Maybe. I'm just saying maybe. I can't see all the way over there. But how are you looking with succession planning and what is your vision? Every one of us here, but I guess with the exception of me, every person on this panel has a person or two within their office that is being trained currently to take over in the event that none of us are here including a matter of fact we just hired a new or promoted an office manager on St. Croix who was the administrative assistant for that office and the new person that's going to take over as administrative assistant is from that office so we try our best whenever we have vacancies that we we fill and promote from within so even let's say in our monthly meetings or executive level meetings we make sure that we include those those employees as well so they would know exactly um what to do if of those of us are there so mr creaky for example let's talk about mr creaky he he is our compliance auditor and more right so he'd at a glance if you see mr creaky's dashboard and spreadsheet at a glance i could tell you everything that's going on in the the operation because he did just that, right? And so those are the type of things that we are encouraging our employees to do so that when the opportunities arise that they're the ones who are going to be able to handle these positions. Okay, with that very in-depth answer, I don't think the chairman would let me ask another question. 3:00:29 If you have a follow-up question or you have an additional question, Senator, satisfy yourself. I don't try to satisfy myself, I try to satisfy others and the Almighty God overall. So I wanted to ask you, and I started off with that question, do you comply with Homeland Security protocols for your Real ID? Are you in compliance? Yes, Senator, we are. 3:02:26 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance Okay. Thank you so kindly. Thank you very much, Director McIntosh, how many employees do you have making under $35,000? Senator, if I, just one minute so Ms. Michelle can get me that information please. Okay, in the meantime I'll recognize Senator DeGraff for his point. Thank you Mr. Chair, okay good, I just read that one down and wait for that answer. Okay, also you said you had 63 employees, how many were on General Fund and how many were on the BMV Fund, while you're getting that under 35? 3:02:59 We have to find that as well. Okay, they just gave it to me a little while ago, so I know they go for it. Simone and Michelle, there are 51 employees on the General Fund, and there are 12 employees on the BMV Fund. Okay, and the Chair's question, how many under 30? There are four employees who make under $35,000. Okay. 3:03:38 Okay, I'm good, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think that's the wrongs-out inquiry for today. Director McIntosh, what about your current mission statement, your task, and that gives you reason for pause? What keeps you up at night? What keeps me up at night, Senator, is our facilities. It's no secret that I really wish that we had a more lofty, better place for our employees to work in a different environment. And also myself. 3:04:07 I actually work in those trailers as well. and my employees, honestly, the well-being of the staff. Can I have some water please? Sure, of course, of course. So I'm speaking to some of my staff, which I do very often. I get to, you know, get an insight into, you know, what they deal with on a daily basis. You know, some of them personal and some coming to work, you know, every day. They really put their best foot forward. And so I, every day try to think of how I can make it better. You know, how I can make their lives a little bit more easier, more comfortable. It's easy to say that's their personal problem, but they're here with us for eight hours. A lot more time than they're probably with their family. So that keeps me up at night. It showed us. I think we've done a pretty decent job of adjusting some salaries by adjusting the job description. I remember when we came in, when I came to office, most of our staff was data entry clerks making $27,000. So we were able to successfully change the job description to customer service and that hence increased the salary and why we only have three under $35,000. So I'm pretty proud of that. But for the magnitude of work that the employees would do on a daily basis, and as everybody can attest to their level of service and professionalism, we wish we would have 100% on board. 3:04:44 We've got to admit, everybody is not with us, but we are there, all right? And so the staff and our buildings, yeah, that keeps me up at night. Very well understood. And you're doing frequent air quality tests and making sure that our mole counts are down and everything like that. Yes, we do. As a matter of fact, in all three offices so far, we have done deep cleaning last month. Yeah, last month. You wanted to speak on that? 3:06:24 Yes, Senator. Patrick Spro, Assistant Director. On all three islands, I think St. John was the last one that was up there. St. Croix, I guess, there's only on a regular basis as well as St. Thomas as well. Excellent, excellent. I'll give you a minute to wrap up at this time. All right, Senator Francis and the members of the 36th Legislature and the other senators present today, we want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to present or ask our budget for 2026. um we do look forward to getting our full um request so that we could effectively fulfill our motto of excellence is all we do um on behalf of the the excellent men and women of the virgin islands bureau of motor vehicles we want to thank you and the the public we want to thank the public especially for your um kind words your comments your words of encouragement and support that you have given to us um because of you is where we where we do what we do and we are able to be as successful as we are um once again i say thank you um i will be remiss if i don't say on behalf of the brian roach administration which is who i work for um that they have basically given us the opportunity or the governor has said look this is your mandate this is what you're required to is what i ask of you and i think um we've all done that um exceptionally well again we want to thank you very well um you're very welcome and certainly when you ask when you look at the return on investment um you're asking for three million five hundred and ninety six thousand three hundred sixty five dollars and obviously your revenue collections continue to be upward of ten million dollars so the return on investment is worthwhile you know so certainly i believe that we need to continue to support this endeavor you are one of under the wheels on the bus that keep all of us funded and keep us being able to provide services to this community. So again, I want to commend the work of the rank and file of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. And I just simply ask that you continue to put your best effort forward despite the challenges. 3:06:53 And certainly I believe that the time has come for us to really work towards some infrastructure improvement because the employees have had to endure this for quite some time. And we should make some effort collectively to address this particular issue. And while we can't build a Taj Mahal, I think that we have to provide them with a better facility for them to be able to work out of. So that's my commitment. So the Committee of Budget, Appropriations and Finance, we'll stand at recess until 1300 hours, one o'clock. Committee stands at recess. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 3:09:10 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 3:13:47 Thank you. Thank you. 3:15:17 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 3:16:17 Thank you. so so Thank you. I love you. 3:18:17 Thank you. ¶¶ Well, my way down. 3:20:47 ¶¶ We'll be right back. 3:22:17 ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ so so 3:23:17 so Thank you. do Thank you. Thank you. 3:26:47 Oh Thank you. Thank you. Here we go. [3 such phrases repeated 11 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 3:29:17 Thank you. ¶¶ Li lo la la de lo te lo dai, li lo la la de lo te lo dai. [2 such phrases repeated 11 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 3:35:17 Thank you. Thank you. Oh, yeah, man. 3:41:46 Thank you. Thank you. so ¶¶ so so 3:43:16 so I'll see you next time. 3:46:16 Oh, my God. Thank you. [2 such phrases repeated 10 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 3:47:16 Thank you. All right. Oh, my God. 3:52:16 so Thank you. Thank you. . [3 such phrases repeated 10 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 3:53:46 Thank you. Thank you. 3:59:16 Thank you. Thank you. The Committee of Budget, Appropriations, and Finance out of recess. At this time, Madam Clerk, please call up the item in Block No. 2. 4:00:16 Block 2, VI Department of Arts, Parks and Recreation, invited testifier Vincent Vincent Roberts, Commissioner nominee. This concludes the reading of Block 2, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. At this time, we'll go to the testifiers table. Good afternoon, Commissioner nominee, Vincent Roberts. Good afternoon, Senator. 4:02:04 At this time, you can introduce yourself as well as your staff. Your staff will be able to introduce themselves. Vincent Roberts, Commissioner nominee, Sports Park and Recreation. Good afternoon, Carol Peters, Director of Business and Finance Management. Let's get out again, please a little bit louder. Good afternoon, Carol Peters, Director of Business and Finance Management. Good afternoon, Richard Clendenin, Youth Community Coordinator. Good afternoon, Raleena Pell, Human Resources Manager. 4:02:32 Good afternoon, Jamila Henry, District Administrator of St. Croix Sports and Recreation. Very well, and we do have a representative of St. Croix. Let's get our name again, Errol. Errol Abel. Very well. Thank you. At this time, Commission nominee, you will proceed with your testimony. Honorable Novel E. Francis, Jr., Chairman of the Committee on Budget, Appropriation, and Finance of the 36th Legislature. Honorable Novel E. Francis, Jr., Chairman of the Committee on Budget, Appropriation, and finance of the 36th legislature of the united states virgin islands other community mem other committee members non-committee members present central staff listening and viewing audience good afternoon i am vincent roberts the commissioner nominee of the department of sports park and recreation before you to provide testimony on the department's proposed fiscal year 2026 budget first allow me to introduce my leadership team present is miss carol peters director of budget director of business finance man and finance management miss realena fell territorial human resources manager with jamila henry district administrator sports and recreation district of st croix mr richard clendening youth community coordinator district of st thomas and able to join due to them being out of the territory with the USVI National Sabah Federation is Ms. Renee Hansen, Assistant Commissioner, District of St. Croix, Mr. Erroy Hill, Deputy Director of St. John and Mr. Leon Martin, District Administrator, Sports and Recreation, District of St. Thomas, St. John. And joining from the St. Croix Senate Chambers is Mr. Ariel Abel, territorial disaster recovery specialist. At this time, I would like to thank our budget operations analyst at the Office of Management and Budget, 4:03:02 Ms. Deanna Jeffers, for her continued assistance. Through the utilization of parks and facilities for local events, sports tourism, and other forms of recreation for locals and visitors, DSPR contributes to the economic growth and development 4:05:07 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance of the territory. To assess in accomplishing its mission, vision, and strategic goal, the SPR proposed fiscal year 2026 general fund budget is $9,272,040. This budget consists of $4,916,981 or 53% for personal services, $2,943,684 or 31% for fringe benefits, $161,029.49 or 2% for supplies, $445,354 or 5% for other services and charges, and $805,000 or 9% for utility services. The SPR proposed 2026 budget consists of the following. Personnel service is 4,916,980 broken down into classified positions at 3,858,651 unclassified positions at $973,990, overtime at $58,000, night differential compensation at $16,340, and other differentials at $10,000. Fringe benefits are $2,943,684 and broken down by employer contribution retirement at $1,000,000. $66,597. FICA at $304,853. Medicare at $71,297. Health insurance premium at $1,445,559 and workers' compensation premiums at $55,378. The supplies budget includes operating supplies at $30,889, vehicle supplies at $45,500, repair and maintenance supplies at $59,116, processing software at $8,200, clothing and cloth material at $2,150, small tools and minor equipment supplies at $15,166 for a total supplies budget of $161,021. The other services budget is comprised of professional services of $52,926, communications of $86,172, travel of $8,000, transportation not travel of $6,500, advertising and promotion of $22,481, repairs and maintenance of $72,412, rental land building of $30,850, debris removal of $7,490, automotive repair and maintenance of $34,023, bulk tickets of $2,500, training of $12,000, and the non-operational miscellaneous grants of $110,000, leading to a proposed budget for our services at a total of $445,354. In addition to personnel services, fringe benefits, supplies and other services, the SPR's proposed FY26 executive budget includes a utilities budget of $805,000. The SBR's total proposed fiscal year budget is divided into three divisions, the Division of Facilities, Parks and Open Spaces, the Division of Sports and Recreation and the Office of the Commissioner Business Office. 4:07:23 The Division of Facilities, Parks and Open Spaces oversees the maintenance of facilities public parks, beaches, open spaces, and recreational areas under the Department's authority. The proposed operating budget for this division is $4,034,013, which represents 44%. It consists of $1,971,845, or 49% of personnel services, $1,367,100, $1,367,100. 4:10:34 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. 7x Senator Dwayne DeGraff heard in this transcript as: DeGraff, Duane M. DeGraff 7x Senator Hubert Frederick heard in this transcript as: Frederick, Fredericks 7x Senator Novelle Francis heard in this transcript as: Francis, Francis Jr, Francis Jr., Novel E. Francis Jr, Novel E. Francis Jr., Novell E. Francis 6x Senator Marvin Blyden heard in this transcript as: Blyden, Marvin A. Blyden, Marvin Blyton 5x Senator Avery Lewis heard in this transcript as: Lewis 5x Senator Ray Fonseca heard in this transcript as: Fonseca 4x Senator Carla Joseph the surname alone also matches: Clifford Joseph; Karla J. Joseph heard in this transcript as: Carla J. Joseph, Joseph 4x Senator Marise C. James the surname alone also matches: Javan James; Giovanni James Sr heard in this transcript as: James, Maurice C. James 3x Senator Angel L. Bolques, Jr. heard in this transcript as: Angel L. Bolques Jr., Bulquez 3x Senator Kurt VLA heard in this transcript as: VLA 3x Senator Kurt Vialet 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 · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance heard in this transcript as: Kurt Biale, Kurt Viale 2x Senator Angel L. Bulkes Jr heard in this transcript as: Bulkers 2x Senator Kurt Viola heard in this transcript as: Viola Bills and acts referred to Matched by number against our own acts corpus. The number is what the recognition heard, so it may be wrong; where it resolved, the title is the one the Legislature gave the act. Act 8790 Act 8790 · December 19, 2023 · An Act amending title 20 Virgin Islands Code, part II, chapter 35, relating to the issuance of limited local-purpose identification cards and operators· licenses aea(Jace Act 8690 Act 8690 · December 30, 2022 · An Act appropriating $500,000 from the Emergency Services Fund to the Department of Health for the purposes authorized in 33 V.I.C. § 3099(d); amending Virgin Islands Code, title 3, chapter 255, section 559 to provide for a hazardous duty pay differential for all Emergency Medical Services employees of the Virgin Islands Department of Health transferred to the Virgin Islands Fire and Emergency Medical Services; amending various sections of title 18 of the Virgin Islands Code related to the appointment of the Supervisor of Elections, compensation of election workers and for other related purposes; amending title 3, Virgin Islands Code, chapter 27, section 706 to allow retirees of the Governme 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