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VI UPDATE U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance Legislature USVI July 10, 2025 · 4.3 hours · gov Source recording https://youtu.be/f8jE2sNrvro 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. Good morning Honorable Novelle E. Francis Jr., Chair of the 36th Legislature's Committee on Budget, Appropriations, and Finance, members of the committee, other members of the 36th Legislature present, legislative staff, and to the listening and viewing, to those, to the public listening and viewing over various forms of media. I am Jean-Pierre Oriel, Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, and I have present with me Mrs. April Henry, Director of Business and Administration, and in the audience members of DPNR's financial team. DPNR was established by Title III of Virgin Islands Code Section 408 to administer and enforce all laws pertaining to fish and wildlife, trees and vegetation, water resources including the protection of safe drinking water, air and water pollution control, flood control, preservation of mineral and other natural resources, preservation of the archaeological, architectural, cultural, and historical heritage of the U.S. Virgin Islands, including public libraries and museums, pesticide control, coastal land and offshore islands and keys, mooring and anchoring of vessels within territorial waters, earth change permits, and zoning. The enforcement powers of the department are codified under Title 12 of the Virgin Islands Code as well as Title 29. The department is comprised of the following divisions. Business and Administrative Services, Comprehensive and Coastal Zone Planning, Coastal Zone Management, Environmental Enforcement, Environmental Protection, the Executive Office, Fish and Wildlife, Libraries, Archives and Museums, Permits, the Virgin Island State Historic Preservation Office, the Division of Territorial Parks and Protected Areas, and the Virgin Islands Council of the Arts. The following departmental budget overview and funding breakdown by division and source 0:00:00 illustrates how DPNR is leveraging a combination of general, federal, and non-appropriated funding to meet its statutory responsibilities, implement transformative projects, and support sustainable development across the territory. This financial snapshot not only reflects our core operational needs, but also highlights the targeted investments that will drive measurable outcomes in infrastructure, environmental protection, cultural preservation, and service delivery in the territory. 0:02:07 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) 1 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance The department's recommended fiscal year 26 budget totals $146,949,100, consisting consisting of $7,009,487 from the general fund, $10,861,427 from non-appropriated local funds, and $129,078,186 in federal grants. Notably, approximately 100 million, or roughly 77% of the federal funding, is allocated for land acquisition and infrastructure grants that pass through DPNR and do not support departmental operations. Our general fund request. 0:02:41 The department's fiscal year 26 general fund appropriation is $7,009,487 unchanged from fiscal year 25. from fiscal year 25. This includes $4,894,087 for personnel and fringe benefits, supporting 61 positions, $238,302 for supplies, $1,271,514 for other services and charges, and $605,584 for utilities. The appropriation also covers required local match funding for several federal grants, including the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts and supports mandated obligations such as the Tutu Wells mitigation site and the Virgin Islands Historic Preservation Commission. A summary by category is provided in the tables below, followed by a detailed breakdown of other services and charges. a general fund allocation by division of the 12 divisions within the department nine rely on the general fund appropriation with the remaining three divisions coastal zone management comprehensive and coastal zone planning and dfw being funded entirely by federal grants and or other non appropriated local match the following table indicates the recommended allocation of the the general fund for these divisions for the upcoming fiscal year. 0:03:35 Our federal funds. Most of the department's federal funds comes from our federal awards. For fiscal year 2026, federal grant funds will contribute $129,078,186, or 88% of the overall department's budgets. Allocated across all categories, the estimated amounts are personnel services at $9,449,063, which covers salary and fringe benefits for 102 positions, supplies at $1,268,951, Other services and charges at $87,276,800 and utilities at $35,500, and indirect cost at $1,727,423, and our capital outlay at $29,320,449. Below is a breakdown of federal funds by each of the divisions. are non-appropriated local funds or our special fund category. The fiscal year 2026 recommendation for non-appropriated special funds is $10,861,427, or about 7% of the department's total request. These funds derive from fees, fines, and rentals of submerged and filled submerged lands provide support to the Executive Office, the Division of Environmental Enforcement, our Permits Division, Comprehensive and Coastal Zone Planning, Coastal Zone Management, and the Division of Environmental Protection. 0:05:14 Fees collected are deposited into the following funds. Our General Fund, Coastal Protection Fund, Legal Publication Fund, Fish and Game Fund, underground storage tank fund, the natural resource reclamation fund, and our air pollution control fund. Collections as of May 31st, 2025 are in the amount of $3,435,196 and total collections of non-appropriated funds in fiscal year 24 were $8,452,461, my apologies. Breaking down the special funds by category, the estimated amounts are $3,843,350 for personnel infringed benefits, which fund 42 positions within the department, $522,953 for supplies, $4,909,976 for other services and charges, $47,000 for utilities, and $1,538,148 for capital outlay. the table below provides the allocation of special funds for each division as well all right the following portion of my presentation provides an overview of the roles and responsibilities of each of the 12 divisions and the estimated fiscal year 2026 budget breakdown for each division in the table seen before you here i will focus my discussion on the major initiatives that each division will embark upon for fiscal year 2026. 0:07:10 so beginning with our comprehensive and coastal zone planning division in fyi 2026 comprehensive and coastal zone planning will continue advancing the comprehensive land and water use plan through proposed amendments to key sections of the zoning law these include updates to section 225 our definitions section 228 our table of permitted uses section 235 our administration and enforcement and section 240 penalties and violations and section 242 fees cczp will also collaborate with other divisions and agencies on zoning amendments related to special areas such as agricultural zones and historic districts and to support public understanding and compliance the division plans to host zoning law training sessions and develop a visual user guide to help residents and developers interpret and apply zoning regulations effectively coastal zone management in fiscal year 2026 coastal zone management division will focus on advancing several 30 percent design projects from the the territory's watershed management plans to full design and preparation for implementation. These projects identified in collaboration with the Department of Education and other properties, I'm sorry, Department of Public Works and other property stakeholders aim to address key environmental challenges within the coastal zone. CZM was awarded approximately 22 million under a NOAA grant, which will be used to support the design and implementation phases of these priority watershed projects. Next, under the Enhancement section 0:09:05 of our cooperative agreement with NOAA, the Division will pursue enhancements in permitting requirements that will synchronize the way all divisions with Earth Change responsibilities review such applications. For our Division of Environmental Enforcement, the Division of Environmental Enforcement, in partnership with Online Mooring, LLC, has launched the new electronic boating registration card system. These digital cards, accessible via mobile devices or as downloadable files, contain key registration details such as vessel ID owner information and their expiration dates. They're designed to improve the convenience and enforcement efficiency. The e-card will be issued immediately upon 0:10:51 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 2 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance registration approval and will serve as valid proof of registration until the physical decal is received and affixed to the vessel. This initiative reflects the Division's commitment to modernizing services and offering boaters a timely, user-friendly, and environmentally responsible alternative to traditional paper registration. In addition, the Division of Environmental Enforcement is enhancing field operations by procuring Apple iPad tablets to replace manual paper-based processes. In collaboration with the Bureau of Information Technology, DEE is developing digital forms to be preloaded on the tablets, enabling officers to document patrol log, issue citations, and access vessel registration records in real time. This upgrade will significantly improve efficiency, accuracy, and information sharing between DEE and local or federal law enforcement agencies, reinforcing division's mission to protect the territory's natural resources and public safety. In our Division of Environmental Protection, our focus continues to be on eliminating its high-risk designation to improve program operations and streamline the grant reimbursement process, which currently limits access to full funding and flexibility. As part of its modernization efforts, DEP will transition permitting services to the municity e-permitting platform, allowing applicants to submit and receive permit documentation electronically for greater convenience and efficiency. And to support this transition and improve overall program delivery, DEP will prioritize strategic recruitment to ensure timely permit processing, effective enforcement, and expanded community education and outreach. Additionally, recognizing the critical role of water quality in public and environmental health, the Division of Environmental Protection will strengthen its collaboration between its water quality and non-point source programs to more effectively identify and address sources of pollution that threaten ecosystems and community well-being. The Executive Office. In fiscal year 26, the Department of Planning and Natural Resources will achieve several key milestones for the completion of FEMA-funded federal capital projects. Most notably, we anticipate the long-awaited reopening of the Dr. Charles W. Turnbull Regional Library and the Athley-McFarland-Peterson Library, as well as the completed renovation of our St. John office, restoring vital community resources. Renovation work at the Eneb-Bah Library will continue through fiscal year 26 as part of our ongoing disaster recovery portfolio. Simultaneously, progress continues on the FEMA-funded restoration of Fort Frederick 0:12:44 and fort christian museums with architectural and engineering design ongoing and construction bids set to be advertised upon finalization in parallel a separate procurement for conceptual exhibit design and both sites supported by the us eda funding which was initiated and evaluated in fy25 the selected exhibit design vendor will work in coordination with the construction contractor to ensure alignment with the renovation timeline once complete dpnr will issue a dedicated rfp for the fabrication and installation of exhibit components ensuring a smooth transition from construction to public interpretation lastly to continue the modernization of the department the executive office has submitted a bead funding request to the office of management and budget for fiscal year 26 to expand its e-permitting platform to include the divisions of environmental protection fish and wildlife and the state historic preservation office this upgrade will streamline permitting workflows enhance enforcement capabilities improve our service delivery and support our revenue growth of division of fish and wildlife In fiscal year 26, the Division of Fish and Wildlife will launch a major effort to expand facilities supporting wildlife and fisheries conservation through a network of community outdoor resilience centers that provide outdoor amenities to access fish and wildlife resources. Key projects include the renovation of the Red Hook office to support public boating access, and a mangrove trail with boardwalk on St. Thomas, and the repurposing of the former elena christian junior high school into an educational fish hatchery the division of fish and wildlife will also enhance boating infrastructure by installing fish cleaning 0:14:42 stations monofilament connectors educational signage and ada compliant kayak launches across the territory under our boating infrastructure program the division of fish and wildlife will submit its updated state wildlife action plan which was last revised in 2017 for the first time electronically via wildlife.vi.gov to congress this data-driven plan expands eligibility for federal funding beyond traditional game species to include areas like aquatic invasive species bait fish sargassum aquaculture rare pollinators and conservation opportunity areas the plan outlines actionable measurable spatial and species specific goals positioning the virgin islands to secure millions in future federal funding opportunities continuing efforts to connect communities with nature dfw will pursue new annual habitat goals such as creating additional trails through representative ecosystems in fiscal year 2025 trail crews funded by the office of insular affairs native plant program mapped and assessed nearly three new miles of wetland forest on st croix and a half mile of wetland trails on st thomas the division will also continue will also sustain its support for youth and community programs including the complex high school marine biology club our sea turtle assistant and rescue or star network uvi youth ocean explorer scholarship and our guided kayaking trips For the Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums, in fiscal year 26, the Department of Libraries, Archives, and Museums will prioritize expanded access to educational resources, digital tools, and community-centered programming. Key initiative includes an upcoming collaboration with NASA that will support lifelong learning and promote engagement with stem content through technology integration d-lam will enhance public access modernize facilities and extend outreach efforts to historically underrepresented communities these 0:16:35 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 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance initiatives align with national goals in literacy workforce preparedness and civic engagement workshops and lecture series will be offered throughout the year as well traditional literacy remains a core focus for DLAM we will continue to expand library collections and support programming such as family literacy nights intergenerational book clubs and outreach in areas with limited library access particularly those that demonstrate academic impact and strong community partnerships these efforts aim to improve reading skills while fostering a love of learning and community connection. In our forts, D-Lam will develop the conceptual design and of new permanent exhibits highlighting the Virgin Islands natural and cultural heritage in each facility. This includes audio and visual production to include self-guided tours of the facilities. In our permits division for fiscal year 26, permits will continue prioritizing training and outreach to the construction industry and our key stakeholders. These efforts will focus on clarifying recent code changes and providing guidance on the permit submittal and inspection process through the department's municity e-permitting platform. To further enhance service delivery, the division plans to acquire an additional plan review tool within the e-permitting platform to support greater accountability, accuracy, and faster processing times. Additionally, the division has been awarded a grant under the National Flood, what is NFIP, National Flood Insurance Program, sorry, the National Flood Insurance Program, CAPC program, which will support efforts to strengthen the territory's floodplain management system. This funding will help improve the Virgin Islands community rating and compliance with national flood claim standards, reinforcing dpnr's commitment to resilience and public safety in our newest division that of the division of territorial parks and protected areas in fiscal year 26 we will focus on advancing several key initiatives to build out the virgin islands territorial park system priority will be given to the approval and implementation of a comprehensive 0:19:25 conservation plan as mandated by act number 8609 and the development of the territorial comprehensive outdoor recreation plan funded through the land and water conservation fund from the department of interior parks will also continue developing management plans for newly acquired park properties under the noaa climate resilience regional challenge grant guided by conservation priorities sustainable land use and community input each site will be evaluated to ensure that planning aligns with its natural topography promotes public access and includes accommodations for individuals with disabilities to enhance public engagement the division of parks and protected areas will invite the community members to provide input on how they interact with these spaces and their vision for the new park system a new gis and mapping fellow will join the team to create interactive maps of tpa tppa managed properties including upcoming acquisitions will be made available online at dpnr.vi.gov parks additionally parks will continue collaborating with community partners to strengthen environmental stewardship through programs funded by the NOAA CRRC grant, including Conservation Corps initiatives with CHANT, Mangrove and Coral Restoration and Workforce Development with GRROE, and Coral World Restoration Institute, and Summer Environmental Educational Programs with CEE, the St. Croix Environmental Association for our Virgin Islands State Historic Preservation Office it remains dedicated to supporting the Virgin Islands Historic Preservation Commission in the stewardship of the territories rich cultural and architectural heritage for fiscal year 26 VI Shippo will continue assisting the Commission with the management of the historic districts and site reviews to ensure integrity 0:21:16 of the built environment. Key initiative for fiscal year 26 is the publication and promotion of the historic district guides for Charlotte Amelie, Christiansted, Fredericksted, and Cruz Bay, which will be made available on our DPNR website. This comprehensive resource will provide property owners, developers, and public with clear guidance on making improvements within the historic districts, including the application process and links to additional preservation resources. SHPO will actively promote this guide to encourage community engagement and compliance with preservation standards. SHPO is also advancing its role in the St. Croix National Heritage Area, approved by Congress. The required management plan has been submitted to the Department of, the required solicitation for the management plan has been submitted to the Department of Property and Procurement for bid solicitation. In fiscal year 26, VI Shippo will allocate resources to support the plan's development, ensuring alignment with federal guidelines and timely completion. And in our Virgin Islands Council of the Arts, as VICA prepares for fiscal year 2026, its strategic planning begins each June with a community-wide survey distributed through SurveyMonkey, social media, and in-person outreach. The survey targets individuals, grantees, educators, art organizations, and UVI with additional access at agricultural fairs and how to apply workshops held on all islands. Public input is actively collected through email, workshop, funded events, radio appearances, and exhibitions at VICA's art spaces, ensuring inclusive, territory-wide participation. The Art Spaces Initiative continues to thrive with Vika's offices on St. Thomas 0:23:25 and the Dorsch Cultural Center on St. Croix, providing key venues for exhibitions, performances, artist networking, and technical support. The Dorsch After Dark series will return in 2026, offering a monthly platform for emerging and established artists. These creative hubs also provide artists with resources to complete grant applications, press releases, and professional development tasks, reinforcing the territory's arts infrastructure. VICO will continue to promote its 0:25:26 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) 4 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance signature programs, USVI Folklife Festival, held in partnership with the 10 Sleepless Nights and the Reichel Center for the Arts, the Made in the USVI pop-up shops, and the Poetry Out Loud competitions. These programs celebrate the love of our cultural traditions, promote local entrepreneurship, and introduce the arts to our youth. Next portion of the presentation is just a general overview of our human capital. As of June 30th, 2025, DPR maintains a workforce of 151 active employees across its 12 divisions consisting of 83 classified, one general schedule, and 67 exempt personnel. In fiscal year 2025, DPNR welcomes 16 new hires, experienced 10 resignations, five retirements, with five more pending before the end of the calendar year, and terminated two employees. We are presently interviewing for three positions in which postings have closed, currently have five postings which we entail to fill before this fiscal year, and we also anticipate releasing another 15 postings before the end of this month. The department continues to experience human resource challenges due to salary constraints. 0:26:32 We have developed a pathway to address retention and have made starting salaries for many positions more competitive. However, this still relies on the negotiations for collective bargaining being completed. We have also taken advantage of several fellowship opportunities with three currently providing services to the department and a fourth to begin later this summer to fill personnel shortfalls within the department. These staffing changes reflect the department's ongoing efforts to strengthen capacity and maintain operational effectiveness. The next portion of my presentation is something that would traditionally I had been submitting as part of the budget markup. However, we have been in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget and decided to make it forward facing this year. And this is our supplemental budget because we could come to a crisis situation. And so in an effort to address critical operational gaps, DPNR has submitted two supplemental budget requests for fiscal year 2026. These requests are essential to ensure continuity of service staffing across two divisions, the Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and the Division of Permits. And without these supplemental requests, employees will be laid off, and services to the public will be further impacted. 0:27:23 Supplemental request number one, request $575,143 to support six months of funding for 13 existing staff, as well as fill vacancies from the Division of Permits. Following the passage of the 2017 storms, DPNR was awarded a $7 million disaster supplemental award from FEMA, which allowed us to shift existing employees at the time off of the general fund and hire over 20 new employees. The award was set to expire in August of 2025. However, we were able to reallocate resources and justify an extension of the award to continue to support staff through March of 2026. Without this supplemental funding, we will not be able to support all of the staff salaries, the majority of which are inspectors, which would directly impact disaster recovery projects in the territory. And below is a chart outlining the positions that will be impacted. Supplemental request number two seeks $1,416,159 to fund the Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums operational staffing needs for the full fiscal year. The Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museums cannot fully reopen or operate territory-wide without the appropriate staffing. 0:28:56 The current budget ceiling does not allow for the retention and recruitment of the and necessary workforce. Without supplemental request number two, public libraries will have to remain closed or underutilized, denying access to vital educational and cultural resources. I would also like to note that the Trump administration permanently closed the offices of the Institute of Museums and Library Sciences in April of 2025, and the current federal budget shows no allocations which would incorporate the operation of libraries. Thus, the $138,000 we received in fiscal year 2025 to support subscription services, pay for our E-rate, and provide outreach supplies is likely the last amount of federal support we will receive for the next several years for this division. Below is a chart of the supplemental request for the Division of Libraries, Archives, and Museum. 0:30:22 So, wrapping up, the Department of Planning and Natural Resources achieved several milestones in fiscal year 25, reflecting our ongoing commitment to service, stewardship, and sustainability. For ease of reference, a detailed summary of accomplishments by division is provided in the appendix to this testimony. However, some of our highlights include the completion and the adoption of the Comprehensive Land and Water Use Plan, which is a critical tool for guiding responsible development across the territory. The launch of our electronic permitting system Unicity for application submissions. We have done Zoning 101 training sessions for all DPNR staff, offering practical layperson friendly instruction on zoning and subdivision codes, development calculations and code strengths and weaknesses, and these sessions have been recorded for ongoing staff development. We secured over 70 million in funding to support the conservation and enhancement of our green spaces. Continued public engagement through our Science Saturdays program streamed live via Facebook on the second Saturday of each month promoting environmental awareness and education. We've upgraded our enforcement fleet assets, including two new vessels deployed in both districts to strengthen regulatory enforcement and public safety, the execution of over $8 million in subrecipient agreements under the Historic Disaster Recovery Program, supporting critical restoration efforts, promotion of Virgin Island's culture and heritage through art displays, musical performance, folk-like festivals held across the territory. 0:31:19 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 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance In addition to the completed accomplishments listed above, we also anticipate prior to the end of the fiscal year making several land purchases for the territorial park system and launching our recreational fishing program to the public. These accomplishments are a direct result of the hard work and dedication of the 150 plus men and women of DPNR. I extend my deepest gratitude for their service and commitment to our mission. Their collective efforts continue to foster economic growth while safeguarding the territory's natural and cultural resources for future generations. In closing, I thank the 36th Legislature of the Virgin Islands for the opportunity to present the department's fiscal year 2026 budget. With your continued support and our federal partnerships, DPNR is well positioned to maintain operational efficiency, restore essential services, and contribute meaningfully to the Brian Roach Administration's vision of a stronger, more resilient Virgin Islands. The road ahead will present challenges, especially in securing adequate funding, but the staff and DPNR are still ready to meet them head on. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Commissioner Orio, for your testimony, comprehensive testimony, I must say, I gleaned from it some progress, as well as some challenges, so we'll dig into some questions in respect to that. My first question to you is whether or not you have received all of your 2025 allotments to date? 0:33:08 Nope. No, Senator. What was your last allotment, or what is the delta? What are you short of? I'll have Ms. Henry answer. Morning, April Henry, Director of Business Administration. receive our ninth month allotment and we're still missing our 10th 11 12. 10th 11th and 12. and how much is that in aggregate um i believe it's two million hold on like three million i think it's around there i think i think while you look about product is going to be around three million about three million dollars two million one two 2.1. 2.1 million. 0:34:42 And what is the communication with OMB and finance in respect to that? There's no communication at this time. We were told when they are prepared to send, they will send. Just like that. Just like that. Interesting. So what about vendor's payment? much do you invent this payment as of July 2nd our outstanding obligation is eight hundred twenty seven thousand nine hundred ninety four dollars and forty six cents and what is the age on that how far back are you going I can give you that one second and let me get a number again please eight hundred eight hundred twenty seven thousand nine hundred ninety four dollars and forty six cents okay one second on the age well we look for that I just want to welcome the presence of non-committee members senator Clifford a Joseph on good morning senator welcome John thank you for joining us I would have to provide that at a later time senator okay no problem um revenues let's talk a little bit about the revenues how much have you collected uh thus far in revenues our collections as of june 30 total 4 million 166 727.56 how does this compare to the last fiscal year fyi 2024 at the same time uh senator i believe we're right on par with where we were last year as well should we be a little bit ahead so the the last year we actually presented in in the early part of June and then here we're presenting a month later so our big 0:35:25 particularly on the reclamation side where the marinas are paying is usually in the August through October time frame is when we're getting big chunks of checks okay what is your projection revenue projection for FY 2025 so for the 25 let me pull that up our projection for fiscal year 25 was around 8 million 8 million so we're about close to 50% yeah today okay I'm gonna open up the floor at this time to my colleagues and then I'll come back and ask some additional questions. I'll do a five-minute round and the order that will be going in this morning so far is Senator Balquez, Senator Frederick, Senator Balquez, Senator Blyton, Senator Frederick, Senator Avery Lewis, Senator Fonseca, Senator Potter, Senator Maurice James, Senator Duane DeGraff and Senator Clifford Joseph. Senator Balquez you're recognized here five minutes. 0:37:26 Thank you Mr. Chair. Good morning Mr. Chair. Good morning colleagues. Good Good morning to the listening and viewing audience. Good morning, central staff, and good morning to the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, Commissioner, and I apologize, your name again? With Commissioner Oriel? April Henry. Ms. Henry, sorry, I apologize. So good morning to everyone. Commissioner, your department, as you know, has a very big responsibility that spreads across many different areas. And I know that a lot of them require a lot of time and effort and enforcement, which I know is something that you are struggling with. How have the efforts moved forward concerning bulking up the enforcement for the Department of Planning and Natural Resources and what sort of vacancies exist in that space and what efforts have you been working on to make sure that we can sort of get that division up to where it needs to be so thank you for the question senator so honestly over the last two years we were actually pretty well staffed in our enforcement division having uh six officers in the st croix district five in st thomas and then we had a posting for one officer on st john unfortunately of the resignations that i mentioned earlier we had two resignations in the saint thomas office as well as one retirement so right now i'm down to two full-time officers and we have posted for applicants the issue that we normally face is that if you post uh vacancy this early and you're not really sure when the academy is going to take place if it's not happening within the next two months then you may lose the interest of the 0:38:26 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) 6 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance person who may qualify okay noted um i want to shift from that um but good luck on those efforts thank you um the post auditor report revealed that um and i think that was back in may 31st um that you only spent about 52 percent of your general fund appropriation with $863,000 in unspent obligations. Are you able to utilize those funds before the closing of the fiscal year? Are you on track? 0:40:26 Yes, Senator. I mean, the bulk of our general fund allotment is personnel. And then we only had one vacancy on the general fund coming into fiscal year 25. Okay, very well. um you have about 165 federal grant funded positions that are tied to temporary or expiring awards what's your long-term plan to maintain the continuity of that personnel especially with the critical divisions uh that you have fish and my life shippo dep so uh many of our there there are two types of grants senator there are grants and then there are cooperative agreements cooperative agreements is the world that we exist in where you have personnel on those and those are monies that you get on an annual basis and you'll have carry over so even though an award might end this year okay it can carry over and then those staff that are funded on there will be on there and eligible uh my division of coastal zone management my division of environmental protection my division of fish and wildlife those are all awards that carry over every year okay and then you do have some expiring awards but a lot of that is also passed through by us to the utility company okay thanks for the clarification you have a 23 increase in you in your utilities what's the reason for that um i think two things senator one is that what was originally budgeted last year was not sufficient uh to the point where uh when after the 35th did budget markup you actually increased our utility amount so and then the second is we also have to recognize that there are new buildings coming online so the the turnbull library by itself is going to be a massive massive utility generating expense um you know and and so we have to make sure that we what we made sure we voiced three buildings becoming online in 26 and having some appropriation for that are you talking about those capital projects are fort frederick for christian 0:41:01 enid m bar no so i'm mainly focused yes enid bar um peterson and the enid bob peterson the st john office and the turnbull library are four buildings that will come online and those that's funded by fema yes okay any contingency for reserves in place in case you have a cost overrun or escalations one minute we've been using cip funding to deal with a lot of cost overruns so for example enid ba although it is a fema funded project fema represents only about 20 of the funds we're using a lot of cip funding for that okay your dep um division remains under a high risk federal designation what what limits its ability for to receiving the full funding that it should be getting or the causes of the delays for the reimbursement so so right now what we have done is is worked out an agreement where our 30 seconds our costs for our fixed costs as well as our contractual obligations once they see that we've followed our procurement guidelines they will release those funds the um the main thing that causes problems is uh salaries salary infringes on a complete reimbursement and we have to go through an accounting practice called the true up process and so that is extremely burdensome because again we we that takes uh running an accounting protocol for that and we have now hired to if mr chair if i may finish we have now we now have contracted two external accounting folks to assist us not only with our current fiscal year 0:43:13 but the past years that we're trying to get reimbursed as well okay and mr chair if i may have uh thank you mr chair uh your municity e-permitting system it's partially implemented what has been the delay for the full um rollout um if you could sort of put that on the record so that we we can sort of understand where you are and how how much time sure what time you need yeah honestly it was uh so staffing shortfalls like people who uh are program managers who left the programs whether through resignation or retirement um who were on the original scoping team for when we were building out the system and so uh all of the behind the scenes work need needed to have a point person in every division that could continuously give the software developers the information and we had a lot of people drop out and so now but we I did not want to delay the launch of the system particularly for the permits and CZM divisions so we move forward and we said we would go back and then no smaller divisions like SHPO but more complex divisions like the Division of Environmental Protection, we're going to add them in, but it's going to come at an additional cost for me. 0:45:02 Very well, and thank you for the time, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much for your line of question, Senator Bulquez. Real quickly, Commission, before I go to the next senator, which would be Senator Blyden. As a revenue and a regulatory agency, enforcement is critical. What is the creativity being deployed to at least continue to attract enforcement officers? Do you have an opportunity, like, for example, the police department have auxiliary officers or even cadet programs, or now they have CSOs, community service officers. Is there any creativity, you know, that you're deploying to help you to be able to attract additional officers? So thank you for the question, Senator. 0:46:23 It's interesting because we just had that conversation last week, myself and Director Forbes. So when we bring somebody on and they're actually getting ready to enter into the academy, they're an enforcement recruit right and so the idea is well we have the funding so let's bring them on board to be side by side with some of the officers we just have to control what situations they would be in but if they're available we can create that kind of they'll get hands-on training first before 0:47:04 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) 7 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance going into the enforcement academy so we were we were looking into um we were looking in with post as to whether or not we could do something like that because again we're not calling them officers we're not paying them as officers they're recruits and and so that's sort of where the mindset is now because we do have a few interested individuals uh in in coming into the program and we want to take advantage of that we don't want them waiting around and then taking other opportunities very well i love to further the discussion because even if we need some legislation to allow you to be able to do that i think it's critical that we're able to to at least you know attract these individuals and and giving them that that on the job training experience even before they go to the academy could save you in the long run because you know people might have an interest in it but they go out there maybe they get seasick for example or they don't no longer like it once they're experiencing it so i think that giving them that opportunity to either be a cadet or CSO or some subcategory of enforcement officer will assist you in that endeavor. The energy as well, you talk about the projection of increased energy cost. Is there any alternative energy being deployed or considered? Are you having discussion with the energy office, perhaps a solar plant or something else? So we we actually have a few grants that would allow us, on some of our facilities, to actually install solar and battery. The main one right now is we have a significant, or not a significant, but a good amount of funding to put some solar back up on the Turnbull library. However, one of the engineering reports that we received during the reconstruction process of the roof was that there was a deflection in the roof and that damage was caused because of the weight of the solar panels. And so we did ask that we not only fix it but create something that maybe provides a little bit more stability and we're waiting for the roofing contractors opinion as to whether or not we are good to go to put solar back up on the on the roof system or not so and I think everything should be on the table right perhaps even I'm deploying them in your parking lot and they become shadow covers as well may be considered if the present a threat for your roof so we we absolutely looked at that prior to like we we have three options um the creating the shed covers with the panels it costs twice as much and you get one third the actual efficiency uh energy production okay so we we have looked at that as an option if we cannot do but we would just be we would look to probably put more battery storage 0:48:58 and then just, it would be slower production because there would be less panels. Understood. At this time, the chair will recognize Senator Marvin Blyton, Vice Chair, you recognize for your five minutes. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Good morning to my colleagues, listening viewing audiences, staff, central staff. Good morning, Commissioner Oriel and Director Henry. And thank you so much for your testimony, most comprehensive testimony. Although my colleague said that you do have a large responsibility and you play a very important role in our territory, especially when it comes to our environment and our recovery, in my opinion. I have many, many questions, to be honest with you, though, because you manage 138 million, you say, in federal funds? 0:50:43 Approximately, yes, Senator. That's a lot of money. Yeah. And like you said, most of it, a lot of it is passed through, but at the same time, it impacts us in many ways. Let me ask you, though, in terms of capacity and your staffing, how many vacancies do you say you have? Sorry, let me look at that really quickly. And while you're looking for that, you spoke about a supplemental budget for three areas in particular. And I want to focus on one in particular, but do you have a response for me? on the vacancies? 0:51:31 It's in my human, sorry, it's in my human council page. That's fine, we'll get to it. You spoke to three areas in particular, and I wanna focus on your permits division, because that's gonna cover employees also with a supplemental budget for those employees, correct? Yes. And with our recovery, and with all of the different capital projects that's coming through, and the bundles and housing space, et cetera, There's so much going on. How do you plan to really get a hold of that division in particular so we can push forward in terms of our recovery in rebuilding our homes, et cetera, to assure that we collect the revenues that's necessary in order for your department to actually go and expand, et cetera? What's the plan? Succinctly, succinctly. 0:52:08 Thank you for the question, Senator. So again, the answer is boots on the ground, like the long and short of it, because while we can improve our efficiency in the office in terms of plan review, that's people who are submitting, we've made it easier. But now you need the boots on the ground to make sure that everybody actually is permitted, that everybody's doing it as the plans lay out. So we're at this critical juncture where we can't afford to go down in inspectors. We need to maintain or go higher. training. Where are we at with training in terms of that area also? So we have done a number of trainings, particularly in-house. One of the things we do is we bring the International Code Council, the ICC, down to the territory and do trainings for our inspectors, making sure that they're aware of what the updates are, everything. And we're actually working on something right now with the Department of Labor to enhance more training and try and improve our recruitment. How many inspectors do you have on board? 0:52:59 I would say at least 20, Senator. At least 20? Yes. OK, how much do you think would right fit in terms of having the right amount of inspectors for you to really push forward? What's the right fit number, in your opinion? Honestly, I think a 0:54:10 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) 8 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance total of 25. And then also where we need is, we need to increase our number of plan reviewers as well. So the municity system, because it's easy and efficient and people can just send their drawings and request in from home, we are seeing a rise. And so we also need people to be on the front side of the plan review. And you spoke to the special fund, which you have 10 million, 10.9 million approximately, which includes fines, fees, rental, or some large land, et cetera. That division- One minute. Or that area. Do you believe you can see an increase in that space? So the 10 million in non-appropriated funds, the more efficient we become in terms of making people apply for things, then the larger that number can grow. 0:54:50 I think with your department, there's a lot of funds in terms of actions that happens that we are not able to recoup in that space, because like I said, there's so much going on. 30 seconds. At the same time, it's hard to catch everyone everything but I believe that we need to really treat it on in this area and it will help bring more fines for the department but let me ask you on in respect to the post our report and my colleague spoke to the chair spoke to it in terms of outstanding vendor payments there's a lot of vendor payments in a post our report that have pending approval from January most of them February and we are in July right now what does what the what's going on in that space what's happening why it's taking so long to get approval not just pending from since then but here we are in July and there's a lot pending approval what the what the what the challenge and how how are you um trying to um deal with that morning April Henry Director of Business Administration so we We have been in contact with our individual in the Department of Finance. 0:55:30 We have one individual approving our invoices. When we notice that something is there for a long time, we just give them a call and see if we can get it moving. Once it hits our unit in DPNR, we take about three to five days to review and approve. But once it gets to the Department of Finance, it is out of our control. But we are in communication with Department of Finance Accounting Division. And lastly, Mr. Chair, if I may, with your federal grants and respect, it's a lot. But like I said, some of those funds affect us in the territory, especially with, for instance, the one that did with sarcasm. And you said that the opportunity to even get more funds moving forward. And I know you also said at the same time that we don't plan to see some federal funds within the next three years, et cetera, because of the non-administration, et cetera. My question is, with many of these federal grants, that many of them are set to expire, et cetera, at the end of this year, some in 26, 27, what's the plan? Honestly, knowing where we are right now with this new administration and their stance and a lot of the area that affects us, what's our plan to assure, number one, that we do not see any more federal funds going back? Secondly, how we manage those funds. And third, how we assure that we onboard individuals to help with capacity issues and making sure that we do everything in our power to utilize those funds. 0:56:44 Thank you for the question, Senator. So one of the things that we did over the last 15 months is beef up our business and administrative services division to bring on board more financial personnel in order to make sure that we're managing our funds properly. Because again, a lot of the funds, while some of them are programmatic, a lot of them are passed through. And we want to make sure that we're not losing that opportunity. In terms of where we are looking and seeing what may or may not transpire, unfortunately, we can't predict what will happen on the federal side. We do maintain constant communication with our lobbyists in Washington DC. We meet with them annually. Sometimes myself, I know I meet with a couple of mine at least three times a year so that we get complete updates. But the long and short of it is, unless Congress actually changes some federal law to not require things like Clean Water Act or Clean Air Act. If they try and change the law, then the federal government is still required to provide resources for those things. And so there will be a stream of resources into the states and territories because we're required to monitor for these things. We're required to do some permitting for these things. But this administration has shown that they could lower those funds, and that's where we just have to keep a close eye out. 0:58:20 Any clawback in respect to the All Water Shed or the Clean Drinking Water Act, et cetera? Do we have any issues in that area? Because that's very important for us here. So yeah, so we're still actually waiting for the full review of the BBB that was passed, But one of the fears that we had was that the state drinking water funding that comes to us, the normal appropriation is about $4 or $5 million a year. Under the Biden administration with the bipartisan infrastructure law, that now went to $33, $40, $45. So this year, the reason why we're showing $146 million is that 50 million of that is awards that are going to WAPA and to the Waste Management Authority for the improvements on our drinking water and stormwater infrastructure. Not stormwater, sewage infrastructure. So they were proposing to reduce the amount of BIL funds for those programs significantly, like a $9 billion cut was what was proposed by the Trump administration in the skinny budget in May. So the other thing that we realize is that, well, a lot of commerce that's taking place, supply chains being filled, everything is because of the Biden infrastructure law. So I don't think Congress is going to eliminate all of the funding because that's what's keeping the economy going. but they certainly were in favor of shrinking the number and the dollar figure so we we are still waiting on the analysis from our lobbyists as to what those numbers look like we 1:00:04 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) 9 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance haven't received them yet thank you so much for your response mr chair thank you for your leniency thank you so much thank you very much senator blight and just real quickly in regards to the vendors payment um and you have indicated that you owe about eight hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars and vendors payment when does it become critical mass you know when do you step in um commissioner call up the commission of finance mccurdy or omb or someone um you know so that we could you know engage engage the nuclear option we have to be able to get these because i'm sure there's an impact uh to your services as a result of um you know these owed and this payment it is so i i would say uh senator it's around like the 60 day mark if it hasn't been because um one of the things that does take place is that um you know within the administration you know your departments are called out if you're you having a backlog on vendor payments and so for us there's a difference between not having them in and having them in and they're pending and so we need to make sure that they push a lot of times what is taking place also is that the department of finance has to see that we've completed the draws on our federal accounts in order for them to release those monies and sometimes you know i think it's overall it's a staffing issue so you have to resend information but i have gotten involved on several occasions because again we want to make sure that our vendors are willing to do business with us and and the small ones here locally in terms of operations they they have some frustrations as well and we side with them on that absolutely and it's squeaky well wheels as well and get it oil right so you have to really continue to champion the vendor's payment there how is morale at dpnr um and the reason why i asked again i'm seeing where you got 16 hires 22 separation which means that you're your delta you're down at least six individuals so how are you um what's the morale like um good question senator uh you know i i would say that um i would say that like all the government agencies right now inflation has risen 1:01:58 faster than you can actually negotiate for and so um i i really dislike tying morale to salaries but a lot of people do and so um you know people are being hit hard when it comes to inflation and you know when when you have a collective bargaining agreement that's only doing a one or two percent increase per year it's it's not keeping up with that rate so but um you know i think that for those who do fully enjoy like working in the environment that we do um there There are a lot of people who like what they do every day and they continue to do it. 1:04:07 Okay, are you doing exit interviews to determine where they're going? Yes, we are. So you have a guidance of what's happening in our space? Yes, and then before you move on, just to answer Senator Blyden's question about the number of vacancies, so it's 60. Six-zero? Six-zero. Six-zero. Significant. The chair recognizes Senator Hubert Frederick. you're recognized for your five minutes at this time. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Pleasant, good morning, everyone. Testifiers, thank you for coming today and defending your budget. And the listening and viewing audience, my colleagues in my office, and our wonderful central staff here at the legislature for helping us make today happen. 1:04:53 Commissioner, you're one of my favorites because you're a straight shooter, and you have a tough job. But what makes your department so appealing to me is you generate an enormous amount of federal support grants, and it doesn't cost us that much. So we were talking earlier about how much revenues you generate, and the number was like eight million. And I'm so excited that we could grow that number, and I know we should, because there's opportunity which helps our treasury, helps your department get a lot of these issues that we need resolved, taken care of. What was the amount of revenues you generated in FY 2024? 1:05:38 The total collection in 2024, it's actually the last line in that section of this. Let me just pull it up real quick. So 132 million in federal grants. I think it's phenomenal with only 138 employees. So to answer your first question, Senator, so the number, the total collections in FY24 was $8,452,461. And the total amount of employees right now, as of June 30th, is 151 employees, not 138, but yes. 1:06:26 150. Okay, great. So we're really poised to make that $8 million number grow substantially if we could get the headcounts in there, right? Yes. I mean, we typically, over the last average of our last five years, are right around like 7.7 to 8 million. And we think we can grow that number as level. I was looking at the post auditor's review on some of the expenses. This year is pretty unique because there's some huge hits that's coming in. For example, travel seems to be, it just stands out, $769,931. Page seven of the post auditor. Can you expound on that please yep morning April Henry so that amount is equal to about two of our divisions our environmental protection and our territorial parks they are the two divisions that have the most federal funds that amount for travel is written in their budget it's over I want to say about five I know parks grant is about for five years but this is the money that we're going into fiscal year 26 with we may or may not use that amount but it is written within the grants that we must attend um the grantor agencies trainings and workshops okay great uh so that's all federal money anyway so okay the good bulk of it yes okay great um let's talk about some leases here um we've got some leases expiring this month uh correct rainbow plaza uh two hundred thirty eight thousand dollars a year uh are we it should be 331 senator i see 238 382 page seven of the post-audit report okay 1:07:11 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 10 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance did we miss something mr chair can you clarify with the post auditor okay you have a question for the post auditor yes oh okay Okay, yeah, cost share. It's cost share. Okay. Yeah. So the total rent, Senator, is $331,000, but there is a cost share, so some of it comes from local resources, some of it comes from our federal resources. Okay, great. All right, so those numbers stuck out. I wanted to make sure we cover those. So let's talk about page eight of the Post Auditor's Report, federal grants. There's some expired grants that I need to know the status of these. We've got the Emergency Supplemental Historic Preservation Fund expired in March of this year, and we left $599,000 on the table. So. 30 seconds. Yeah, I think that, so when you see something like the Coastal Zone Administration Awards, that are highlighted like so ccm awards are a maximum of three years so if we receive the award in if we receive the award in 2022 it's going to expire in 2025 um you can get a one-year extension if they're if you justify it um so but i think that um i think that so i just got a note that all of our awards, actually, we've submitted for the extensions on them. 1:09:08 Okay, so it's pending. Hopefully we'll get them back. Okay, so I noticed this year, especially in September, it seems to be like a deadline, September 30th, a whole lot of these grants are expiring, and there's still quite a bit of funds available. For example, let's look at the Historic Preservation Fund grant. Mr. Chair, if I could just finish up, $347,877. Where are we with that? Are we going to be able to spend that money? 1:10:44 Yes. So a lot of these are back filled. Is it a reason why it takes that long? Because it gets right up to the finish line. We're in July, and we're two months away, 67 days away from it. so when you have like an administration award that's covering your salaries it's covering it for the fiscal year so we'll be charging against those awards through September but then you're now going to complete your draws by December and close out the award so and then they overlap with a new incoming award so most of our awards for operations coincide with the federal fiscal year as well and so we put in our award proposals between April and May we receive our award notices in August they come online for the new fiscal year in November so you operate on those existing awards through the close and then you now close out the award 90 days following so and then just on the emergency supplemental historic preservation fund so we've exhausted the operational expenses on that some of this is now we're waiting on the the the awardees that we gave funding to we can't give them a hundred percent of funding up front and so we have to wait until they turn in their progress in order for us to liquidate reimbursement real quick my my my libraries i wanted to talk about that i noticed your supplemental is going to be over a million dollars for us the local government now to take care of it since funding has evaporated on the federal side um the the supplemental issue gave us is that all those employees are currently on board for the library or there's the majority of like so a lot of the employees that are in there are existing but then we're asking for additional as well so for example um yeah can you notice note what they are what which ones are existing because i i couldn't tell if it 1:11:16 it was currently on hand or not okay thank you very much mr tier appreciate the additional time oh thank you very much senator frederick for your line of course and uh commission do you have any federal funds in jeopardy at this time um nothing that no nothing jeopardy wise that we're worried about like being completely gone what we do know for example is that um that i can give a quick example like our coral reef conservation program funds uh you know we were we were at about 700 000 um for fiscal year 24. fiscal year 25 was not uh released i think they just sent a nofo out after the bbb was passed but congress reduced that part of funding from 33 or 34 million down to 26 million, which means that the award, we will probably lose like $200,000 in that because they have to take that money and split it up amongst the seven states and territories that have coral reef resources. So that breakdown is going to result in a lower amount for us, probably an average of about $200,000 or so. 1:13:23 Okay. And do you have a federal grants administrator? You have somebody that actually oversees the federal grants separate and apart from your general on local funds? We have three right now, and then we are interviewing for a fourth. Okay. All right. So this is not commingled with the local or what? You have somebody that actually just... No, and then we have, yeah, and then we have people that just deal with the local side of funding as well. Very well. Thank you. Senator Avery-Lewis, you're recognized for your five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. To everyone, good morning, colleagues. Good morning, testifiers. Good morning to the viewing and listening audience. Commissioner Oriel, how are you doing today? All right, Senator. 1:14:45 So before I begin, anything but budget, I have one big question. What about the old boat out there? So thank you for the question, Senator. So that vessel, we have grown impatient with what's happening right now. When there was activities taking place, like shortly after, and that vessel has insurance. What happened is the contractor was nervous about getting in the water because there was raw discharge that was taking place. We knew right at that time one of the lines behind the police building had collapsed. 1:15:30 We knew what was going on, everything. So we gave them a little bit of time. But we've now... So we tested the water actually just last week and this week. And both instances have come back and the lab has said your bacteria count is extremely high. that's what it came back as but for me we've also sent or prepared to send a notice to the owner that says 1:16:21 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 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance that by now you all could have figured out whatever your alternative was in terms of not having people in the water full time you could have used a barge a crane barge anything like that to hurry this up so we are now invoking penalty provisions in order to speed that up and And then if I end up removing it, then it will be the cost of the removal plus the penalty per visit. Well, Commissioner, let me tell you something. We had about three or four other boats, and the guys that you contracted went in the same water. Correct. And removed them. Correct. And we notified the owner. So I don't know who these special guys is. Tell them to act together. Our harbor needs to be cleaned. Yeah. We notified them. And the residents. We notified them that we were taking away our boats and that we could have arranged the same, but they, you know, so we are pushing back now because it's getting ridiculous. How many employees do you have making under $35,000? 1:17:18 Fifteen. I see in the post audit report, the general fund allocation for debris removal has increased 172% in fiscal year FY26, from $2,099 to $12,000. What's the justification? Go ahead. The charge removal. 1:17:55 Good morning, that amount is for trash removal within the divisions, district, sorry. Okay, so Senator, to answer the question, I think this is more, the 12,000 is more realistic as to what it costs, because again, we have to pay a holler to take away bins, rentals, all of those things. It's not $20 a month, right? Like $2,000 a year is gonna be, no, That's $200 a month. It's more than that. 1:18:25 Good. Yeah, you didn't work with your VICA crew today, but given the termination of your federal library support, can VICA or other DPNR entities fill the cultural programming gaps? I mean, so I want to be very clear. The federal funding for our libraries was only about $138,000 a year. But it was very specific in terms of what we were using it for. A good portion of it was to pay like the subscription fees, the software that you use to like check out books and do all of those things. Those things are very expensive to the tune of like almost 40,000 per facility. One minute. So, but the program, it also gave programming money. So the thing is that Vica really can't afford to support anybody but themselves because they right now don't have enough to support themselves. So Vika had about $375,000 in a special fund support and then $366,000... 1:18:57 Last year. ...in general fund. That was enough to cover, to ensure equitable access to all the programs in Ireland? Yes, so, and again, that funding... 30 seconds. We get an NEA grant, a national endowment for the arts grant of about 350,000, if I'm not mistaken, and, or 360, and so the legislature over time has had previously exceeded that amount, but right now it's matching it almost one to one. But, so we're looking at ways where we're going to reduce operating costs for VICA in the upcoming fiscal year, freeing up a couple of dollars, And then also have some revenue-generating experiences, just because we're moving them into the Enidba facility to be able to see what other things we can do. Good. Mr. Chair, may I ask one wrap-up question? 1:20:04 Why did other services not otherwise classified decreased by over 35 million, 81%, from fiscal year 25 to FY26, under federal funds. On our report, Senator, or under the post-sadded report? I got it from the post-sadded report, sir. If you could just let us know which page. I know it was a 81% reduction. 1:21:07 What was in the, I wrote it down, sorry. Mr. Chairman, I'll come back to them with that. Okay. Very well. Final page number. Thank you, Senator. At this time, the chair will recognize Senator Ray Fonseca. You recognize for your five minutes. yes good good morning good morning and thank you mr chair and special welcome to commissioner oriel and his um business and administration director april henry um page nine the non-appropriated local special funds you got six funds there you got the coastal protection fund the legal Publication Fund, the Fish and Game Fund, I was able to get the balance of that, that's 528,358. The Underground Storage Tank, I couldn't get the balance for that. The Natural Resource Reclamation Fund, that was 9.4 million. And the Air Pollution Control Fund, 196,207. So So do you have the balance of the Coastal Protection Fund and the Legal Publication Fund? True to chair, can I request those balances? 1:21:38 Yes, April. Okay, so that's three funds, the Coastal Protection Fund, the Legal Publication Fund, and the Underground Storage Tank Fund. You want them right now, Senator, as of? Yeah, well, yes, I would like to get them if you can give me, but I don't want to waste the time, so I'll go on to another question. Okay, on page 26, your supplement number one, the division of permits, the vice chair of this committee had some similar questions. Okay, I looked in that division. 1:23:15 There are actually 14 persons in that division here that have a salary of less than 35,000. What is so interesting is that the chief field superintendent have a salary of $35,020. So that means most other people in his division will come up to 35,000, he'll be still at 3520. That's good for all the others, but I'm sure he'll probably have a issue with that. So, you know, I would advise you to look at that. Okay, so the, and that's in a division of permits. You know, what is so interesting about that, right? 1:23:57 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 12 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance Is that the supplement is your ax and it includes, it's included in your grand total today? Yes. No, I'm sorry. No, the 7, the 7 million 9,000 does not include the actual supplements. Okay, so what's that's 575,000 add? Yeah, it'll be about $2 million extra, Senator. Okay. And then the libraries is a 1.4 million, I was gonna get to that one. 1:24:42 Okay, so let's go to the libraries, which is a supplement number two. So you have five libraries, Ateli, McFarland, Charles Wesley Turnbull, Ian Lane, Ione Sproul, Enid Bar, Florence Augusta Williams, right, those are your five libraries? Yes. How many of them are open? Two, or, no, I'm sorry, one is open to the public right now. Okay, which one is open? 1:25:15 The Florence Williams Library. Okay, so let me ask you, right, because in that division too, the library, they have a slew of people is under 35,000 as well, America slew under 30,000. The libraries now are transforming, you know, they're offering the Canopy, the Hoopla, which is a video streaming and the audio books and the e-books and the robotic kits. Are we offering any of those in the library? Yes, Senator. We are? Okay, and we offer high-speed internet and yes hot spot okay good so now enid bar library you mentioned some changes the retail store the council of the arts might move there yes they might so that's still on track yes and it'll have a tourist welcome center yes one minute are you gonna charge do you plan to collect any fees yeah we're gonna to charge for the the made in the pop-up shop like rental space for the artisans to have their goods we're going to have like an artist exhibit space where we can charge for that we're going to charge for like the use of the courtyard for musical presentations those types of things and then also if we can work out how 30 seconds do it for like a computer center, we would charge non-library card holders for the use of the computer center. Okay, that's a very good idea. 1:25:43 I extremely am in favor of that because, you know, you drive by there and you see that restoration going on. That place is looking real well, you know, and it's a real historic building. It's not just an old building in a historic district, but that's a real historic building. and I have to congratulate you on that. The Welcome Center, give me your ideas. Exactly what do you have in mind? So, Senator, the thought behind the Welcome Center was that we feel that a lot of patrons to town start, you know, on conferences, gotta out over here by the fort. 1:27:27 Time. and many of them don't even make it all the way up to Main Street. This is an idea where now, if you were to come up from the Western end, it would be more welcoming. Your very first shop would not be things that are made in China or jewelry all over, but real local products, and try and encourage and entice visitors to start their experience from the Western side of town, start with Market Square, see the the local crafts local foods those types of things and and so that's our idea is that we would be able to have that and then have people that are just greeters right we have greeters at the airport um when you come in you can have greeters in town inside the welcome center and you can learn a whole lot about the territory and then if you're you know cruise ship visitor maybe you learn something that says okay i want to visit st thomas as a as a as a you know a weak passenger or something like that and the taxi drivers used to bring the tourists right in front of the building so you know you could work with our hard working taxi industry so that we can get that you know that's a good idea thank you mr. chair for the time thank you very much senator Fonseca a few line up questions Commission I'm seeing here that in leases and rental you're spending almost well over $800,000 in leases and rentals, $331,000 on St. Croix, $471 on St. Thomas, over an eight-year period of time you slated to spend $6.4 million. Is this of concern to you? 1:28:14 Thank you for the question, Senator. It is. So right now the department is pursuing an opportunity where we can own our own facility in St. Croix using a FEMA PW, and we would be able to move into that facility probably two years from now. We actually have, we've already engaged the owner, we're trying to get closing documents, everything done so that we just spend the time on on the A&E and the renovation of it. The St. Thomas, it is my dream. 1:29:52 It is my dream to move DPNR into the old barracks down and sub base, the three-story old WAPA building. That building is amazing. We spent $1 million on it already in terms of having a full set of architectural and bid documents done. We've removed the majority of the, we've removed the majority of the environmental concerns in there, asbestos remediation. Everything cost us about $700,000. So now, you know, the reason why you see the fund balance in the reclamation fund has been kind of high is because like we've systematically over the last three years have been stacking some dollars aside trying to make sure that we can get in that building. So we have 2 million in federal dollars right now. We have 3 million in local resources. We have another 1.5 million in proposals that we've written for. We need another $4 million to be able to move into that building, but it's wide open. It would probably be an 18 to two year build out as well. So I think we can get it done for nine. 1:30:40 So I think that, and I pose that question because I think that we need to have that discussion. I think that there's some opportunities that we need to look at. But I can't imagine that we'll continue for the next 10 years to pay rents or leases when we could actually own our own building. So I'm hoping that at some point, my colleagues and I could maybe to tabletop this discussion and really provide some funding to support that initiative. The Rainbow Building itself, we have 1:32:04 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) 13 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance paid for that between DPNR and the Virgin Islands Police Department 10 times over the original cost of that building back in the days. So a lot of times we are reluctant to want to spend the money to purchase these buildings. But over time, we pay for them five and 10-folds. Point of information, Senator Lois? Recognize the mic of Senator Lois, please. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Oriel, my question before I asked about is on page 7 of the post-addict report. OK. And the question was, let me repeat, you could get a full grasp of it. 1:32:45 Why did the other services, NOC, decrease over 35 million, 81%, from fiscal year FY25 to fiscal year 26, under federal funds? What was in that 43 million last year? Mary, I'm April Henry, Director of Business Administration. So most of that money is actually for some of our grants, our sub-grants. we had it budgeted under, sorry, we had it budgeted under other NOC in fiscal year 25, and this fiscal year we budget under grants NOC. So you'll see a big shift in that, based on the guideline from Department of Finance as to where we must allocate those monies. 1:33:15 Okay, great, thank you. So, okay, great, let's answer it. And Commissioner Oriel, as it pertains to the Enid, but sometimes you must give a man a little credit, So which administrator would instrumental in that? Thank you. So thank you to the administrator who also had the vision for us to put a nice state-of-the-art restroom facility for patrons of downtown. And we hope that that also comes with the funding to operate it as well. 1:34:00 I was telling you who's the administrator, but. committee of budget appropriations and finance thank you thank you senator lewis stands for two minutes Thank you. Thank you. 1:34:34 so Thank you. 1:36:09 Thank you. Thank you. 1:37:09 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 1:38:09 Li lo la la le lo te lo dai, li lo la la le lo te lo dai. Thank you. Thank you. 1:39:39 LILULA LALA LILULA LILULA OYAMEN Thank you. Thank you. so Thank you. 1:41:09 so so so and we are out of recess and again we're here at the committee of budget appropriations and finance that we have before us, at this time, DPNR, Department of Planning and Natural Resources. Before we go to the next senator, which will be Senator Potter, followed by Senator Maurice James, 1:43:39 I wanted to ask you, Commissioner, back in January we had a conversation with Director Edwards and Ms. Hill in regards to the trust of public lands, and regarding the Maroon Sanctuary Territorial Park Project, we had an update in March do you currently have an available update or completion of that purchase at this time senator we are shooting for before Labor Day before Labor Day it's really on the availability of like it paperwork isn't everything is in the finalization process and so we we are definitely doing the closing between late July and early sometime in August okay that's good information and is there any discussion being had with Department of Tourism or other entities civic organization in maximizing the best use of that property especially as we talk about the tourism product improvement is there any discussion being had with those entities so the first thing actually senator when when I was doing the update for the territorial park system one of the things that we're gonna do is like these community surveys in terms of what what low-impact activities we would like to see it as part of the system and then we also have with some Department of Interior funding something that we're working on called the territory outdoor territorial outdoor recreation plan and So those two things will begin the discussions in terms of what the appropriate activities are, and then we can start working on the marketing of them once we drill down to what activities we wanna see and how we would then need to push those spaces. 1:45:45 Very well, thank you. And that involve, I guess, community town hall meetings and those type of discussion. Yes, Senator. The chair will now recognize Senator Milton Potter. recognized for your five minutes thank you very much mr. chair good afternoon colleagues good afternoon to you Commissioner Oriel as well as the director of business and administration miss April Henry Commission I wanted to ask you just to kind of follow up on one my colleague here on the left started engaging you with the Enid Bar library where are we with that project exactly right now so right now it is about 30 percent complete um but once the elevator shaft is completed then they're gonna like the completion percentage is gonna jump in droves on a weekly basis okay um we just did a i just personally did a walk through there uh not this past week but the week before. So we see where they are. And there are certain things that they need allowances from us and the fire service on particularly on the fire management system, before they start to close up. But once they start to close up the walls and put in the finishing, then it is going to move a whole lot quicker. Brian, any unforeseen circumstances we, you know, we can't plan for, what would you say would be your expected delivery time? So the contractor is looking to turn the building over to us in November. In November of this year? Of this year. OK. OK. Excellent. Commissioner, with respect to Act 8515, just to refresh your memory, it appropriated $920,000 1:47:40 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 14 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance to the Virgin Islands Port Authority for the construction of the cruise bay fish market and ramp modifications, and $580,000 to the Department of Public Works for the construction of a boat dock and slipway at Inner High Pond. Can you speak to the current status of these inter-agency infrastructure projects? Thank you for the question, Senator. So I can speak to the drawings for the fish market. 1:49:36 So the Port Authority engaged the services of Moffitt and Nichols to produce the architectural and bid documents for that facility. They held one stakeholder engagement meeting, which DPNR was asked to be part of. They met with the local fishers on St. John, got some of their ideas, and then over time, they developed some drawings and they were completed, I believe in January of this year, to do like a small two-story fish market where the second story is more open air, and then the bottom is going to be several lockers and such. So I actually have the renderings from the output, but I do not know what the Port Authority's schedule in terms of going out for bid on that is. We haven't gotten an update on that. 1:50:14 I've been hearing about it for so long and just, I think people would like to understand, or would like to feel as though there's this interagency collaboration and somebody's actively driving and moving this project and there's a time sorting and there's progress being made and you feel energized that something is happening. But I just don't get that feeling that that is really, there is that energy and that cohesive drive towards finalizing it. I ain't hitting you with this, but just, I know you have a number of agencies that are engaged, should be engaged and involved. So that's just my two cents. 1:51:12 You don't necessarily have to answer. Regarding page 15 on your testimony, Commissioner, on the FY26 initiatives, you said that in FY2026, the Department of Environmental Protection will focus on eliminating its high-risk designation to improve program operations and streamline the grant reimbursement process, which currently limits access to full funding and flexibility. 1:51:55 How long has EPA been, or EP, been on high-risk status? 12 years. What do you see or what strategy do you have in the works to ensure that, you said in 2026, you expect to see some movement in that regard? I mean, what new initiatives is being implemented to make sure we get out of that high-risk status? So thank you for the question, Senator. 1:52:28 You know, the conditions that the government as a whole operated under in 2013 are significantly different than where we are now from 2020 forward. A lot of this had to do with the allocation of payroll. And our ERP system, back in the day, not really being able to handle allocations of more than two sources, Mr. Chair, if I may. 1:52:59 So with the upgrades in the systems that we've seen, we've seen upgrades to procurement policy by the government as a whole. We've seen improvements in our systems overall. So systematically, we have fulfilled all of the updating of our standard operating policies and procedures over time. And those have been written and approved, which is how we now got to where our contractual obligations and our fixed costs like rent and utilities and those types of cost shares are being given to us rather than paid and reimbursed once you demonstrate. We still have some tweaking to do on the personnel side, which we believe we have actually now fixed. 1:53:34 But one of the things that we have been asking the EPA for is to terminate the high risk designation, still make us go through the process, the TRU-UP process for reimbursement packages, but start with this fiscal year and say, hey, we can move forward. And unfortunately, we haven't been able to get an agreement with them on that. But we have had them come to the territory, investigate, look through our systems themselves, review our policies and procedures. And so they have seen that, you know, all these improvements have been made. And I also should note that in January of 2020, the EPA was coming here to the Virgin Islands to release DPNR from the high risk designation. 1:54:28 And the federal government shut down for 45 days prior to. And then when they came back, they canceled all travel. And we have been begging for them to revisit since. And they kind of moved the goalpost on us a little bit, which we felt was completely unfair. And so to me, that led to the extension of the designation now for this last five years as well. So we really, we are pushing forward. We've hired two external contractors who can assist us with all of this. I have staff in the back here tell you that this is something that I've really been driving and including requesting through the GVI fellow program fellows that can be dedicated to assisting us with getting through this. So we are making a very big push to bring this money reimbursement back to the territory right now. 1:55:27 just ask one quick follow-up what has been the financial impact to you what has this status how has it impacted tpnr from a financial standpoint so two two things one it's a seven million dollar hit to the treasury that needs to be reimbursed over the years and then the second is particularly when we have these sub-grant agreements where we're trying to put money out into the community for the for long periods of time before we reached an agreement about two years ago we would have to pay out or the community members would have to actually spend the money and then be reimbursed on that and so when you're dealing with small non-profit organizations who probably have a capital account of about 30 or 40 000 they're unable but they're getting a project for 200 000 they can't afford to be without that cash for a long time those receipts need to be reviewed and approved and turned back in so we can release the funds timely which it was not 1:56:33 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 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance happening and we're having you know we were having problems helping our small non-profit partners as well thank you very much commissioner for your response thank you very flexibility mr chair you're welcome senator is there anything the legislature could do or or a government house or delegate to Congress? Is there any influence that could help drive this conversation further in term of expediting the evaluation? No, Senator. So again, with us right now, all of the milestones that were set in terms of where our systems need to be, what our standard operating policies and procedures are, like those things are there. Right now, our actual capacity in the division has been, when I said moving goalposts, this is one of those divisions that has had some attrition and then now we're behind in some of our programmatic steps and I'm there and I'm saying, hey, you don't get put on high risk for that, right? That's not what this was about. This was about our financial systems. We're gonna leave it there. So our financial systems are up to date, but now we still have to do this financial piece, the true up process, the accounting piece, and we have to turn those packages back in. I still believe that the EPA could declare that we're off the high risk moving forward and still have to do the reimbursement packages. We had that discussion with the new regional administration when he came here and made a site visit in April. And so we said we would continue that discussion sometime next month when he's in the region as well again. 1:58:06 Okay. And the chair will recognize Senator Maurice James. You were recognized for your five minutes at this time. Thank you Mr. Chair, good morning Virgin Islands, good morning colleagues, testifiers, everyone in and outside the room. I first want to ask you Commissioner Oriel, I see that there was a change order with respect to the Peterson Library. 1:59:31 And when can we expect the opening of the library? I noticed that you said demolition was completed in April, followed by mold remediation in June. But as you know, most people just want to know, when is it going to be open? When do you anticipate that happening? So Senator, all I can really give you right now is the estimated completion date for the project itself, which is scheduled to be sometime in February of 26. 2:00:06 Again, what the opening of the facility or how we use it will be staffing dependent. Staffing dependent? Yes. Okay, I noticed on that page, do you combine Florence and Peterson? I just noticed it, But, of course, all of us do typos, human error. Let me ask you about the leases. I wanted to find out with respect to the Rainbow Plaza and the Tutu Park Mall, I saw a reclamation fund. Is that federal funds that are being used? No, Senator. Well, the Natural Resource Reclamation Fund is a local fund however for rent we do use uh we do do federal cost share from two of our programs for rainbow plaza and we do um and then the reclamation picks up the rent for the tutu park mall location yeah and that's where i was going to go my next question was going to be whether there was any cost sharing uh of the rents for any of the facilities that you're presently leasing so what's the what's the cost sharing or requirement with respect to the ones that the federal funds are um contributing towards so for example our division of fish and wildlife which is a hundred percent federally funded there's a cost share for them in the rainbow plaza based on the square footage and dollars per square foot which we ran yeah um similarly we have that as well with environmental protection um but overall the the divisions coastal zone management is another one that has federal uh dollars that we have to do a match for um we don't So we use our federal dollars primarily for the staffing portion and then some of the operations. But the reclamation piece, which is a required 50% match, is done on the rent side for that division as well. 2:00:40 okay with with um of course when we when when we move to ownership um there's a difference right in terms of does the federal um percentage just evaporate because we become the owners of the facility so it so what will what will happen um senator is that the i mean you won't have that necessarily that expense but in terms of how you do your cost share we would just change the formula we won't apply that necessarily to rent or anything okay thank you for that and with respect to the you said there were 60 vacancies in your department correct yes do you have a breakdown of how many of those vacancies are funded by federal funds so if we have vacancies how many are federal funded how many are general funded yes we do and can you give that to me now uh we don't have the exact much how much equates in federal funding um in terms of vacancies because what that means is we're not getting those federal funds in one territory take care of an employee or employees and you know um as a former federal employee myself you want to get as much money into the territory from um federal funds and especially to fund employees because then it improves the the quality of life for those employees because those positions are usually higher than um the local ones so that's why i was asking so i don't have the exact number broken down for you right right now um you know what we did is um if if you look at the the breakdown by division and the but the tables that we have set up for we show you what are funded vacancies in each division at the top of the table so it'll say number of existing personnel number of funded vacant positions if you add up all of those that's where you get to be around 60 or maybe 61 uh is that like the the 21 positions for example in fish and wildlife because that division is a hundred percent federally funded that's all federal dollars there um the 21 positions in our division of environmental protection that's uh that's majority of that mr chair if i may the majority of those positions 2:03:01 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 16 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance are actually federally funded so i would say probably about 16 of the 21 are federally funded um ccm has some federally funded ones as well uh so there there is a there is a probably of the 60 positions i would say 35 to 40 were pro are probably federally funded that that's a large percentage mr chair may i ask one more question please you may senator thank you sir i um just have one question that i'm curious about and that has to do with the economic political and social development for the territories those um grants are they grants that are um that cover a number of projects or programs because i'm seeing where the usage rate especially for the ones that are um that expire in 2025 you may have addressed this before but it seems as if the the amount of money we're able to access usually um happens closer to the expiration date so can you just give me an idea of what type of projects are funded under that specific um grant sure that's called economic social and political development yeah so those thank you for the question senator so those are a combination of of technical assistance program awards from the Office of Insular Areas, as well as our capital improvement project grant funding. So for example, the economic, political, social for 900,000. So I spoke to having, you know, I spoke to having about $2 million in federal funds for the redevelopment of the WAPA building. that 900,000 is a CIP grant that would go towards that facility. The 2.688 million, that's a portion of that federal grant that right now is helping build out the Enidba facility. So once we start to actually get charges from the contractor for the parts of the building that are funded by the CIP grant, that 2.6 million is going to go down significantly. The $270,000 award that's expiring in September, that's the grant that we use to make our E-Rate program. The most recent update as of June 30th is there's $1,500 remaining in that award, and we're about to make one purchase that's going to now basically bring it down to $30. So we are keeping track of all of these, But that's what those are, they're awards from the Office of Insular Areas, and they're a combination of TAP and CIP funding. 2:06:11 Thank you. I appreciate your answers, Commissioner. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Senator James. The Chair will now recognize Senator DeGraff. You recognize for your five minutes. Dwayne DeGraff. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, colleagues. Good afternoon, testifiers, all of you listening and present. Commissioner, I would like to have your actuals. And let me know as of what date, personnel, fringe, supplies, other services and charges, capital outlay. Actuals from fiscal year 25 spent to date? Correct. General fund fund. You have them? 2:08:53 Yes. Morning, April Henry. As of June 30th, our personal is $1,956, $760.96. Fringe is... Excuse me, $7.67, is it? $1,956. Thousand, yeah. It's $56,000, sorry. $760. $760, okay. $0.96. Fringe, $1,028,324.11. Supplies, $70,285.02. 2:09:29 Other services, NOC, $338,621. Capital, $174,885.30. for a grand total of $3,568,876.39. Okay, say the final number again, please. $3,568,876.39 as of June 30th. As of June 30th. 2:10:08 Okay, thank you. Commissioner, now I hear you said that you have 158 employees. 151 151 okay this is what part of confusing part comes into me 151 61 of them are covered under the general fund only you're asking for the same amount of money that you had in 25 only 61 of them are covered under the general fund correct in your testimony has it 61 mm-hmm okay then you say you have 60 vacancies mm-hmm 60 and 61 121 mm-hmm all the others are okay so from from 61 to 151 comes to how much 90 something people out of that 90 something 60 is vacancies so with i try and get a number straight so we have 151 right one so 60 vacancies puts us at 211 people right okay so now of these existing there's 14 employees right now that exist in the department that when those awards expire those individuals no longer have a job with the department unless we do the supplementals right right so that's just to maintain at that 151 so no so you're adding 14 to 61. with the 14 you're adding personal fringe no my 61 includes my 61 includes those personnel supplies every based on your own testimony that you have here you're asking my same amount of money as 25. the supplemental is where you're asking for the extra 2:10:40 additional two million dollars yes we're working on that but that two million encompasses 14 employees that you want to bring on you add to your personal fringe it encompasses i think I think it's closer, Senator, because there's, I think it's 17 full-time, so there's a couple vacancies in there as well, and there's also some part-time individuals No, see, and that's why I try and get straight, I try and get your number straight for 61 solid employees, general fund So those are funded, 61 funded vacant employees No, no, no, no There's 61 existing employees one minute yes 61 general fund employees 61 general fund employees yeah uh your personnel three million one in a 25 budget 61 solid general fund employees you're adding you want to add 14 75 general fund employees 30 seconds total the 14 comes under your supplementary right so we have is going to take you up to 75 75 correct with your 75 total you want to add 2 million to personal and fringe only is where you take it for that 14 not into everything else So when we add that into personal and fringe, we add an additional two million in personal and fridge total. The one point thing that you're asking for is your supplemental. Yes. Okay. 2:12:42 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 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance So it's not for anything else other than just a 14 personal and fringe. Okay. Has anyone in your department 25 received wage increases in 25? Not in 25, no. Okay. Is there anyone in 25 owed any retro money? from any wage increases prior to 25 just that's one GS employee well okay I don't get so how many years employees do you have just one one if I may report mr. 2:14:26 chair okay GS one and the old retro for this year yes for 25 yeah okay so right Right now, we are looking at adding, and based on your actuals, one million nine for personal and fringe, one million. We add in two million. I just want to make sure we're covering everybody, because personal come first. So we can go, come next year, you'll be up to 75. 2:14:56 And are there any wage negotiations taking place presently? Yes. Okay, so that will go over into, you come back for supplemental to include those? If we finish negotiations, we started the negotiations seven months ago, they're not done yet, so. Okay, and then in closing, the fees, you have a special fund that you charge fees and different things. how much fees have we paid, had this boat here and the waterfront paid? Done. That's a travesty, that's number one. 2:15:34 Number two, if the water quality is so bad, it got people to be fishing in the waterfront, if you're aware. Have you put out anything into the press telling people, hey, put up signs, don't do this, don't fish, don't swim, don't be in this water? No. That needs to be done, that's a travesty. So that's my only complaint in the negativity. that's unrelated to the budget, but I'm just saying I would ask post-haze that signs be posted that people don't use that water for fishing, don't use it to go into swimming and different things. I'm sure it's being done. 2:16:11 Okay, thank you for the time, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Senator DeGraff. You wanted to respond to that, Commissioner? You don't want to? No. Have we paid for the water testing on those areas? is that one of the vendors that's owed a significant amount of money no it's not it's not so we uh our vendor uh that does the water testing for us is the university of the virgin islands so we have a contract with them up to date uh so and and again the testing that we do on a weekly basis is for swimming beaches so we don't test waters in the harbor because we don't swim in the harbor or at least it's not it's not customary for that so we've sampled 33 swimming beaches across the territory and we report the results on those on a weekly basis publicly yes it posted on your website as well posted on the website and it goes out as a release to all the media outlets and like on your community calendar you can see it it's on our Facebook page as well so my colleagues point that the that there seems to be a contamination based on your testimony or on it that the importance of that at least a notice be put out on that matter how do you respond to that so I mean the the we did a special testing of the water right here in the harbor specifically to try and counter the argument of the contractor who's supposed to remove the vessel that the that the water is too impacted for them to get in and and and remove the vessel so that was a targeted thing and and what we found out is that no bacteria levels are high but in my opinion the contingencies that you would need to use in that water type and at that depth like a dry suit and those types of things all of those contingencies could have been implemented they could have used a crane barge to come and lift rather than getting in the water putting float bags underneath it like we did on the waters over here so they've to me the owner of the vessel and their salvage contractor have had 10 months now to deal with this and so it needs to be gone and we're gonna enforce some penalties if they don't remove it by a 2:16:48 certain time. So that's understood but what about the health concerns of the water? The bacteria denotes what? That in fact that the area is unhealthy? So you know bacteria again you know you can you pick up a number of diseases from bacteria and and I believe on Monday the Division of Environmental Health when were down here for the the hearing that took place they explained in much much more detail the impacts of bacteria and what it carries and how you have different diseases that can spread from bacteria so it's certainly not a healthy thing and that's why the division of environmental health partners with the waste management authority to do testings at different pump sites and such um particularly you know went with all of the releases that have happened over the last eight months or so um and they have their advisories about elevated levels of bacteria from a public health standpoint um you know we we would in fact report those outputs if they were within the realm of our beach testing because that's where we know people are in fact going swimming getting in the water doing those types of recreational activities which is why our program is a beach testing water quality program but would you agree that even though aside from going into the beach the fact that they're consuming um you know fish that's caught within that environment that that to present some some um and safe and healthy so we would i mean again we would have to because 2:19:21 right now all we did is we tested one specific location here right and i know i've seen somebody with a hand and hand line and reel and rod out there but i don't know that they're consuming they might just be there fishing for the sake of fishing because again it's what what do you actually pull up around these near shore areas you believe the fish and release but like i mean because because what i see is tarpon around here and not a lot of people eat tarpon right you know you can't eat you should not be um catching tarpons so that's the thing is that that's what's in these near shore areas particularly over by the french town dock as well so sometimes it's more about teaching somebody like how to fish or 2:21:08 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) 18 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance whatever they're doing it for the relaxation of it but now for the where people might be fishing actually for catch which is a little bit further up that by closer to french town and that sort of thing we don't have any water quality for there if they're saying we would taste test that to see whether or not we should then yeah that's something that we could do but here in this one instance where we tested for or whether or not people could get in safely for a boat, it was specific to that objective. Well, we know for a fact that there's an unreasonable amount of discharge that's coming into a waterfront area. So I think it'll be important for us to determine what the cost associated may be for us to increase the water testing within those respective areas so that we could properly advise the public on that particular issue, whether it's for bathing or consuming, you know, I think equally, they need to be notified of that. So Senator, where I would disagree is, I would say that if we do have a release or we're having periodic, constant releases, I don't need to test it to tell me that it's not going to be safe. I know that the discharge of raw sewage into the water is not safe for swimming. 2:22:22 So you agree with me that then there needs to be some type of advisory as a, you know, government agencies, we have a responsibility then to advise the public against bathing in those waters or consuming. we could we could definitely do something along those lines because again the the the the idea is the issue is this right like they like anytime you would be in high concentrations of bacteria no matter what that instance is and that could include a large puddle after a very heavy rainfall because we have septic systems and septic systems and the water that transverse with it is full of nutrients bacteria everything from your septic system so you don't want to be waiting in those waters as well but so if we're going to make an advisory then it should be along those lines in terms of any type of bacteria contaminated water you don't want to be fishing recreating consuming anything correct correct point of information well senator if you always had a point of information that will come to you. Thank you Mr. Chairman Commissioner Oriel you in your testimony sorry I think in the post I did this testimony today that there is a hundred was 192 million dollars available in federal grants you expended about 20 percent which is about 37 to roughly 38 million you and you indicated that a lot of your grants has passed through here is why I am uncomfortable with I don't want people to feel to get in a comfortable state uh not your agency but these other agencies that you keeping their feet to the fire because I don't want to hear that these funds 2:23:01 be de-obligated and we don't get to spend it you know based on the climate and the actions we've seen of this current administration anything is possible so i'm just wondering are you and your team really calling these guys wapa and whomever and say hey listen what are you doing what is going on you know these things scare me i don't know about you you know the good senator to my right does actually what keep you up at night these are some of the things that keep me tossing and turning because when i roll over and i see these tweets and thing it's reality yeah so thank Thank you for the question, Senator. 2:24:49 So yes, there are standing meetings between DPNR and the Waste Management Authority. There are standing meetings between DPNR and the Water and Power Authority. So when we see a lot of the projects that are ongoing, a lot of times right now, because while Waste Management speaks about prudent replacement, a lot of the money that's actually taking care some of their problems right now is things that are being pushed through Clean Water Act grants and SWIFT for grants from DPNR. So there's a combination of sources, for example, you know, we know that Department of Interior funds is what purchased pumps for the Waste Management Authority that they were recently reporting that they've purchased 48 new pumps and they should, a bunch of them are starting to arrive this month. know the mangrove lagoon I'm not not mangrove waste VESUP waste treatment we recently gave a sub grant to the way to the Waste Management Authority for 23 million dollars to replace that treatment plant in its entirety over the three-year period of the award so right now I think they're probably just gonna finalize some design there'll be a little bit of money that goes up but Once they start the construction phases of that, that's when you see big chunks and those types of things move in. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to keep the fire. All right, thank you. 2:25:24 Senator DeGraff, you recognize for your point of information? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner, I strongly disagree with your statement. When you're the one that would say bacteria in the water, you're testing, you've seen someone fishing, but my budget question is, Do you have funding in your budget that could be utilized to put up signs? If not, then you could let us know so we could put money in your budget to address that. But I think I'll go that angle. 2:26:59 So, Senator, not that we don't have the funding for it. I mean, I could allocate, you know, how much it costs to put up a fixed post and then post something when there are, for example, at 13 beaches in the territory we have signage that when the water is unsafe we actually have a metal sign that we put up and that cost us those nine those 13 signs cost us ten thousand dollars but again our program specifically is a beach water quality monitoring program there is a division of environmental health and public health. And that's more in what their alignment is as opposed to DPNRs is what I am saying. So could we do it? We could, but now in order to also keep it up, while I can have $10,000 to put up the signs, it's $400 every time we run a sample. And so if you're going to do it on a weekly basis that's 400 times 52 that's an additional 2:27:32 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 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance 20 000 for just picking up samples that's one location so depending on what you would like to see it could run anywhere for the year from being you know if you're just doing one location it's a 30 000 startup cost to if you're doing multiple areas not only on the saint thomas waterfront but you're doing it on the Christianstead boardwalk or something like that as well the more samples you have multiply that by 400 times the amount of weeks that you want to do it okay well that could be the fees to assess to the board but again for for consumer public safety based on what you are saying the DPR I think we should address it somehow thank you mr. chair oh thank you very much Senator the graph before we go on to the next senator which would be Senator Joseph I I just wanted to remind you or ask you about update on the Fisherman's Pier in Frederick Stead. You know, we have this, I get this particular concern regarding the safety of that and erecting a sign cautioning individuals. Is there any update on when that sign will be put up to address that particular issue? I'll have to get back, Senator, because I remember speaking to some folks about putting up a sign and no one could clearly, no one could clearly state exactly what this signage is supposed to say. Like, I mean, you know, you're operating both people that are pulling in and hauling out at the same time and it's supposed to be nobody is stationary there so I know one of the complaints was that hey people are leaving their boat there too long and and you know we do have uh we do have existing signage I know we have a couple of them at the the the pier in Gallows Bay as well as the one over here in Frenchtown that say that this is really like for pick up and drop off only like you're not supposed to leave your boat here for an hour or something like that if that's what they're looking for we do have signs that exists like that we can put them up at Frederickstead but nobody could clearly state whether or not that would solve the problem to me so the concern that i've been brought to my attention uh that i shared um before is regarding like individuals that were tying dinghies for example down at the 2:29:16 fisherman pier and when these boaters came uh come to deploy their boats they're having issues and being able to do that safely uh with these dinghies caught in in the pathway for for the um the boaters to be able to launch their boats right so that that's one of the areas so i can share with you what what has been brought to my attention so that we could address that particular so i think it's the same thing because again it's it's people that are leaving their thing there too long somebody if you're there and you're tying it's supposed to be for offloading and then you would haul out or you move on but you do have some boats that tie up there and people think that they could you know let me go by polly's and get lunch yes yeah and then i'll come back an hour later it's it's not a recreational open pier you know it's it's really for transit for fishing and launching and so okay very well uh the chair will now recognize another clifford joseph you recognize for your five minutes thank you mr cheer and good afternoon to my colleagues good afternoon to the listening public good afternoon to the central staff here in the legislature Director Orio, a couple months ago we were here and I asked a question about the mornings that's around like have we made any attempt it may be in costs since we're here for budget about way would cost to start to look into now we started talking about waters here in the harbor but with the all the mornings that we got throughout the island I don't know if we when you're testing the beaches that's one thing but I want to know what where are we at with the getting the wastes of the waste of the boats so senator one of the things that we are presently working on right now is we are applying 2:31:09 for to a federal program that would allow us to partner with a number of the marinas to put in dedicated pump out slips and so the way that we're going to attack that is we want to pass a regulation that states that any marina that has over X amount of slips must have a pump out slip not roll-on roll off but have a dedicated pump out slip so that they now can participate in keeping those folks who have holding tanks that need to be pumped out, pumped out. We are partnering with the Virgin Islands Conservation Service and their expertise because they have somebody who ran the program in rhode island where it's very very successful but so we're putting in that grant application next month and then we will also simultaneously be working on the legislation and the idea is that we pass the legislation but then we also give the marinas the seed money to be able to put in the infrastructure so that no it's not coming at a significant cost burden to them since we're speaking about um so when waste management ready to change out their pipeline is they're going to have a section maybe leaving the marinas maybe come make it back pump back straight into the drain what's the overall plan so so the a number of the marinas are actually connected to the waste management system right now like um french town is crown Bay is, Yacht Haven is, although Yacht Haven is built such that they really can't accommodate smaller vessels, like you need a big boat to actually reach the deck there. American Yacht Harbor is, but then you have things like Compass Point Marina is not, they have over 120 boats, so So we are also trying to identify a location or two centrally located where we put in the infrastructure and then people can just pull up next to it and pump out. We would need to work out those logistics with the Port Authority because right there against every bulkhead you tie into the Waste Management Authority line very easily. So it is not a difficult thing to do. 2:33:04 Okay, what about outside of the marinas, so that they'll work out the same for some kind of either contractor with a boat that could pull up alongside, or they'll have to go to the marinas to offload? No, so I mean over here on the St. Thomas waterfront, we've seen where boats have had marine, like the pump-out trucks come and pump out those vessels right 2:35:37 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 20 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance there. Okay. So depending on the size of your holding tank, those things do take place. But, you know, what we want to see is you can't pass a law that says you're on no discharge territory and you have no place for people to actually discharge. So we're trying to attack that problem from another angle and then force the regulation upon everybody. One minute. Okay, I see that on page six, and you had an increase of 89% in travel costs. Are you seeing, from the training you said, but are you seeing the progress from the training when these folks were after the training? Yes, Senator. So I would say that a lot of our new federal funding is when... When you have the ability to work with partners that are in the same kind of network as you in terms of tackling the same problems, somebody may have already figured out something that you haven't tried. 2:36:26 You meet with them and you see. So, you know, you come back and you put that in and you're seeing the benefits of those. You say you had 60 vacancies, right? Yes. What's the longest vacant position you had in terms of time? The first one that comes to mind is my chief of wildlife position. The chief of wildlife position has been vacant since 2019. We put it out several times to the point where right now it's actually on just a recurring loop but I believe we did interview some folks for it recently and we have made an offer so we're just waiting to hear back. What's the, Mr. Chair, may I, what's the salary for that position? Starting salary for that is about $67,000, but it might be around $70,000. 2:37:09 Okay. One more. The question I have for you is, is it okay with you guys, as far as DPNR, where people are swimming and somebody has come there to fish? so that's a that's a difficult thing um so one of the things that we have to balance right is and this is one of the tenants in the ccm act it calls for the orderly balanced utilization of the coastal areas and so like let's say you have an area that's marked off clearly for swimming because you have your swim buoys out and those types of things so you're demarcating that area for swimming yes if you don't demarcate that area now you might have somebody swimming but then a boat now pulls in and you're saying well who has the right or preference or what have you until you actually put up the marker for this issue then both it's both of them are competing uses but they both have the same right to it so i i'm going a little different because i ain't even speaking about a boat coming in a time of people on but on the feet i ain't not even the boat okay not the boat coming in but people on the feet come you swimming and they coming to throw a line that's my my point so again i would say that unless you actually in part of your management for that area say this is swimming only right like there's nothing that says somebody can't come and throw a line and and you're allowed to do that like even for example uh on st croix and the eastern marine park where fishing uh fishing itself as the primarily is is prohibited you're still allowed to throw a hand line for recreational usage out into the water which is where people are swimming as well i got my answer thank you for your answers thank you mr cheer for the time 2:38:08 thank you thank you very much that seems to be like a humane thing where if you see someone you know um swimming in that area you won't show your line immediately there to jeopardize and becomes a safety issue um but that's a human behavior issue there uh just a couple more questions real quickly before we close out commissioner in regards to your supplemental requests and um one and two how far have you gotten have you sent those into the legislature you channel them through and being a governor's office or where are you with the supplemental It's through OMB, Senator. Through OMB. All right. So those will be eventually sent down to us. 2:40:09 In a part of your funding, there's also a miscellaneous section that you're aware of for the nonprofit organization. I want to go down each of those real quickly to find out whether or not there have been any awards to those areas so far. For example, the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts. Have you dispersed their FY25 amount yet? I don't believe we got a request from them yet. A request from them. What about the Frenchtown Heritage Museum? 2:40:43 So they did send in their request and we submitted it to OMB. What about the St. Croix landmarks? We haven't received their request. The Children's Museum for St. Croix? St. Croix, yes. And St. Thomas. And St. Thomas. Now it's Children's Museum, I guess, there seems to be separate categories there for that. The VI Environmental Association, I've not seen a request for them yet. 2:41:11 Yeah, I'm not familiar with that. That name actually doesn't ring any bells with me on our partner associations. That's like a combination of two different ones. Yes, $20,000 miscellaneous to that. V.I. Environmental Association. No? Mm-mm. Okay. Just some other things real quick. I know in previous years, D.P. and I provided the public with a weekly advisory in the water quality at beaches. Are you still doing that? 2:41:42 Yes. How often is that done? Every week, every Friday. every Friday and you provided the what is the timeline for the opening of the Turnbull Regional Library I know you spoke about that happening soon as well as the McFall and Peterson libraries what is the timeline I think senator that our goal will be to open to the public between October and November up to 1 November okay and you'll have a ribbon-cutting ceremony you'll have a reopening ceremony anything planned for that I believe that yes and and the reason is not so much for it being a completed disaster recovery project but that when the building was officially opened in 2013 there was no actual dedication ceremony recognition of the Hartman 2:42:18 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) 21 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance contribution those types of things and it's something that we've always said we we need to do it was actually being planned for in 2017 before the storms hit so I think we would we will do something and recognize the contributions also of the Hartman family who donated the land and everything for for those purposes okay on your CZM awarded the $22 million under the NOAAD grant for the support, the design, and implementation of the phases, what's the timeline on that? So it's already underway, Senator. So the $22 million is just a portion of the $69 million award. The $22 million is monies where they're broken up into several projects, so we've already issued one sub-grant to the Virgin Islands Conservation Society, the VIX, there to work on these small homeowner improvement plans that can be done so individuals on their property with seed money can implement some stormwater retention better, capturing water off of their driveways, those types of things, and working on that micro level. Then we have the larger projects where we're working with Public Works in terms of where you can actually install real detention and reduce flooding. So one of those areas, we were working with Public Works and their contractor NV5 in Smith Bay, and identifying locations where you could do 50, 60,000 gallons of storage underground, in order to minimize the amount of flooding that happens in the smith bay area and reduce that repetitive loss that happens and then you would use that water for other types of purposes so during your i know that there during your fy25 budget uh you provided for some key performance indicators who is responsible for monitoring those and how have you been doing with your key performance indicators uh so each of the directors in each division are responsible before reporting their KPIs. So appendix two of my testimony has the results of our KPIs. And I would say that we're varied. Like I think our project KPIs are going really, really well in terms of implementation. And then some of our operational ones are, you know, seasonal, like, I mean, we hit numbers, for example, in terms of visitation to the libraries and forts, like when we have summer camps and we have tourist ships and those types of things. But so there's months where you do really well and there's months that you're not hitting your KPIs. 2:43:51 I'm all over the place here because these are notes that came in while we're having the meeting. In terms of your building permit, are all the employees under the building permit unionized? No. So I know that some of the unionized employees are pending union agreements, negotiation. What about those that's outside of the union? How are you handling their salary increases? So right now, again, if the, you know, a lot of the supplement and all these numbers were worked up prior to the 35,000 increase, but the, so right now, again, a lot of the non-unionized employees are non-unionized for us because there was a term limit on the award, which is seven years, and we got a six month extension on that. So we may lose some, because now in order to become a unionized trades inspector, you have to also pass certain tests within a year or so, the ICC tests. And so the starting salary for the trades inspector positions, I believe the starting salary is $46,000. As it gets negotiated, it'll probably go up probably 2% or 3%, I don't know for sure. So we're anticipating that there's an increase there and several of our employees could qualify for that, but I don't see all 14 or 15 like falling in, unless we do an exemption for them. 2:46:25 On those unionized ones, is there an opportunity for you to recognize them or compensate them for out of classification pay where they're working outside of their scope and required to do additional duties? So we have two, and then we've identified where they can make the next steps in. and put those in already for fiscal year 26. Okay, and one other thing is in regards to the Maroon Ridge property purchase is please set up a hike, a tour of the property by stakeholders once the purchase is completed. I know you talk about your tongue hauls and your stakeholders' input and surveys that are also gonna be done, so I guess a hike tour would also be one of those initiatives that could be undertaken my my parks division would love that i think they've probably in the last year hiked the area at least six or seven times a lot of times we uh olasi leads the hikes for us and he certainly enjoys having an audience and talking about the area of course uh it and and and rich in history has rich in history absolutely so real quickly in regards to do you have any litigation or judgment against dpnr uh not that i'm aware of i know we had a couple of cases earlier this year but over the last two months we've actually uh been found whether it's bluer cases or superior court they found in favor of dpnr so okay all right All right. 2:48:16 What does technology and computerization look like for DPNR at this time? So I would say a number of things. First, in the permit section, we talked about optimizing this new software tool with municity that will be able to speed up our reviews. and so it's basically AI-generated review of your plan review, and then your plan reviewer now has to just take a look at the notes themselves to see how accurate, because right now it's looking at more than 98% accuracy on what the ICC is reporting right now. So we're in the process of acquiring that. I think a one-year subscription is somewhere around 35,000, but we paid it. We were hoping to implement it sooner rather than later. The next thing that we're doing is we are beefing up staff in terms of our GIS potential. We're hiring a GIS planner. We have a second individual right now who initially we thought we were gonna do a contract for the implementation of the Comprehensive Land and Water Use Plan, but I was given a referral just about a month ago for a young lady who's very, very GIS proficient, has worked in small islands before, and would prefer something full time rather than as a contractor. So we're looking to see whether or not we take that money and just reprogram it to personnel. So we're going to be implementing using GIS in a lot of our 2:50:00 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) 22 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance programs. We're going to be improving the use of municity for maximizing how many are in there. The Division of Fish and Wildlife is going to be launching their recreational fishing license platform. So that will allow people, particularly the charter industry, to apply for their permits electronically, fishing licenses day, week, or to the charter business itself for the annual fee. So lots of technology upgrades that are in process right now, and we hope that we'll be able to fully launch all of them within fiscal year 26. And of course, in respect to cyber attack, again, we don't want divulge any critical or operational security information, but you want to make sure that you continue to be at the forefront of ensuring that you're protecting your system from cyber attacks in those areas as well yes and and you know luckily for us um dpnr is is one of those agencies that is like fully under bit okay so um we don't run a lot of different systems like you know for example we're not vipd that runs like 25 different systems and softwares and those types of things we're a lot smaller in that in that regard and most of the systems that we are running and our cloud-based partner from other like private who have their own security protocols as well so so but you're part of the gina yes all right um so Commissioner who's who do you have an intern do you have somebody that's you're spending time with to do an understudy I know that you were walking encyclopedia When it comes to DPNR, you've been there for quite some time. You have a wealth of information in your head. And are you looking into some of these young, I see some young, energetic individuals as part of your financial team? Are you looking at somebody that you could understudy you? 2:52:50 You know, unfortunately, I have to say that I have not picked, like, one person to kind of do that with. That's probably my biggest fault. What I'm really trying to do, honestly, is I try and meet with my team regularly. My brain trust is 14 individuals that we try and get together at least quarterly, but I speak to my directors very, very frequently in all the programs and trying to assist. And so the idea, I mean, for me, it's not just about one person kind of taking over for when my term comes to an end, but rather that collectively that they're able to support whomever. And if one of them wants this job in the near future, then, you know, then I'm here for them to be a sponge off of and give them everything that I can give them because, you know, I am one of those folks that have been here for a while, but there are a couple of directors in DPNR that have been here just as long, if not longer, than me, but they've still got energy. They're not winding down, so hopefully they're here even after I'm gone. 2:53:53 Very well. Thank you. And my final question, as I ask every commissioner or agency head that come before me, is what about your assignment your mission that gives you a reason for pause what keeps you up at night um you know i i think that for me uh eight years has gone by pretty quickly and and you know every year when i have my first senior staff meeting of the year i actually go back to my confirmation testimony. 2:55:13 And I looked to see what I said I would deliver short term and long term. So for me, my biggest ones are the permanent office spaces for DPNR. You know, again, it has always been a big lift, that WAPA building. It's a $10 million lift now. when we first started this journey in 2020, you know, the architect told us this is about a four to $5 million project, but nobody I think anticipated the inflation that we've seen and now they're talking nine or 10. But that's one of the ones that every month I'm continuing on. I've got staff members who have been looking at different proposals for us to write where we can get monies for historic building restoration. I even applied to the USDA Rural Development 1% loan program, because if we're paying 347,000 or 57,000 a year, and I get a 1% loan at 200,000, that's still, for 30 years, that still pays off, it's still savings to the department for a building that we own and we can put the difference into the maintenance when we start to have deferred maintenance that we need to run. So I'm hoping that everything goes smoothly with the office space in St. Croix, that way I'll have at least delivered on that. The office space on St. John is one of my nightmare projects but we hope to deliver that this year as well. But yeah, if there's one thing that kind of gives me pause is like, when I look back and I say, these are the things I was definitely going to accomplish. Oh, comprehensive land and water use plan. We got it electronic permitting. We got it, you know, we did, I think we did $20 million roughly in disaster recovery assistance between the fisheries disaster recovery and the historic disaster recovery program. Like these are the things that we needed to deliver on. And I would say my team has done a phenomenal job in making sure that those high priority items remained high priority. So, you know, those two big ticket things in terms of the permitted office spaces and reducing our overall operational budget, those will be one of two of the things that I try and focus on over the next several years. 2:55:47 Very well, thank you. I'll give you 30 seconds to wrap up at this time. I appreciate that, Senator. So I want to thank you for chairing this meeting and allowing the department to present its budget. We know that the legislature has a very daunting task of trying to allocate $900 million across several different agencies. And, you know, we know how difficult it must be to say which entity takes priority over the other. But we stand firm and committed to working within the constraints of the budget. We felt that it was necessary for us to at least highlight what some of the, you know, shortfalls are. And, you know, I'm fully aware that sometimes right now technology and everything that we do we start to reduce 2:58:35 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) 23 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance the emphasis on what our libraries can can provide to us but one of the key things that i state that is important for us to do is that early childhood literacy and it really starts with kids being able to read and having family time inside of that and that's why our libraries are extremely important i mean I think that the most usage we probably see in the libraries I worked inside the Turnbull library for three years myself and we see a lot of usage with the computers because we're in a we were at a time frame where a lot of people didn't have access to high-speed internet and everything and and all the COVID funding that we've invested across the territory has helped offset that and so i would say that now we really need to focus on that primary early childhood literacy programs and it's it's one of the things that we really want to do with our libraries once they are open is promote early childhood literacy engage parents to come with their young children and enjoy the library a lot so i just want to highlight the importance of what supplemental 2 really is. Before I sign off, I really want to thank April and the D-Bass team. You know, I am somebody who, I like a balanced checkbook. And so I'm constantly walking into the business office asking questions, where's money here, there, how we can move things around to get things going and so they get a lot of requests out of me and a lot of time they're more than up to the task so I thank them for having everything prepared and ready and for us to be able to present a very well detailed and laid out budget for you all here today. I want to thank or recognize a couple of individuals as well just with my short time here again even though it's not Employee Appreciation Month I just want to congratulate Maria Tavares and Charles Maynard, my two employees of the year. Unfortunately, I was in Washington, DC, attending the US Coral Reef Task Force meetings when we were doing the recognition ceremonies. I also want to congratulate Courtney Tierney, Kim Blackett and Josette Walker, all of them were conferred in advanced degrees earlier this year. So I want to say good job to them. And you know those those degrees they belong to them and they you know now it's their time to use them and empower them to they've done what I couldn't do so I want to applaud them I really want to thank my senior management team again all of what is laid out in front of you particularly the appendix one in the accomplishment section is a lot of dedicated individuals to the mission of of DPNR in terms of protecting our natural resources, but yet understanding that there is an importance on not slowing down commerce here in the territory and finding ways to improve our services, working with our people. And so I thank them. I thank all 151 members of DPNR for their outstanding work. and I look forward to continue working with them into fiscal year 26 and beyond. And I say, you know, let's, all of the things that we say we want to do, we want to continue to achieve, and let's go out and do it. So, thank you, Senator. Thank you very much, Commissioner, and congratulations to your team members as well, those that were able to attain their higher degree, as well as those that were recognized as employees of the month, and those that continue to make you shine in carrying out their duties and mandates on the behalf of the government of the Virgin Islands, DPNR. In regards to the libraries, I think it's important that we become a little bit innovative and creative in being able to attract young people into our libraries and our students. I believe that an aviation simulator, I keep saying, is something that we need to look at to bring them in there, things that focus on STEM and STEAM. I think, you know, again, we want to be able, I don't think that, you know, there's enough with AI and everything else that's going on for them to be able to get a lot of information by Google, you know, so that might be a little bit of reluctance, but if we could come up with some innovative and creative ways of getting them into the libraries, I think that we'll see a lot more participation there, and, you know, parents will happily either drop them off or bring them in there. 3:03:19 I can't impress upon you the importance of the expenditures of our federal dollars especially for your agency that that's heavily and significant with federal monies you know it's very important that we do that as we continue to see that um you know that the federal monies nationally may be under some some siege you know we it's important that we are able to expand those in a timely fashion so that we could be able to maximize and save in our general fund You know, your request of $7,909,487 is, again, I'm seeing where your collections represent almost $8 million. So there is a little bit of ROI, return on investment there. And also it's important that you continue to carry out those collections in those different areas. 3:04:25 And I truly believe that this institution wants to continue to be a partner in being able to move your department forward. and ensuring that you continue to carry out the duties and mandates in terms of your revenue collections as well as your regulatory responsibilities there so thank you for all that you continue to do that and that goes out to your rank and file as well all right the committee of budget appropriations and finance will stand in recess and till 1 30 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 3:05:14 Thank you. ¶¶ ¶¶ Wake up. 3:10:22 ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. 3:12:22 ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ so so 3:14:22 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) 24 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance so so so do guitar solo 3:16:52 Thank you. Thank you. All right. Oh, my God. 3:19:22 Thank you. Oh, my God. [2 such phrases repeated 8 times · standby audio before the proceeding, transcribed by the recogniser as speech] 3:21:22 Thank you. Good afternoon. 3:25:22 The Committee of Budget, Appropriation and Finance is out of recess. At this time, Madam Clerk, please call up the items in Block No. 2. Act 2, Bill No. 36-0039, an act amending Title 33, Virgin Islands Code, Chapter 4, by increasing the cost to bring containers or flat rack containers into the Virgin Islands. Sponsored by Senator Angel L. Borges, Jr. Invited testifiers, Julia Reimer, Director, Office of Management and Budget. Joel Lee, Director, Bureau of Internal Revenue. Dara Griffith, Interim Executive Director, VI Waste Management Authority. Nisha O'Bain, Trade Manager, Virgin Islands Tropical Shipping. Tom Crowley Jr., Chairman and CEO, Crowley Shipping. This concludes the reading of today's agenda, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. We do have two of the testifiers seated here. We'll go to the mic just to do an introduction test at this time. 3:26:10 Mr. Reimer. Julia Reimer, Director, Office of Management and Budget. Director Griffith. Taro Griffith, Interim Executive Director, Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority. Do we have anybody online? No. Anybody online media? No? Very well. At this time, who speaks to Bill number 36-0039? Please recognize Senator Angel Bulquez for presentation of Bill No. 36-0039. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, colleagues. 3:27:19 Good afternoon to the listening and viewing audience. Mr. Chair and colleagues, I present to you Bill No. 36-0039, a measure to address a long overdue update to the Virgin Islands container tax. This measure is about modernizing how we generate some revenue while remaining competitive, practical, and responsive to our community needs. For 22 years, the container tax under Title 33, Chapter 4, Section 75 of the Virgin Islands Code has not been updated, despite the rising costs of port operations, infrastructure maintenance, and waste management. Today, the law charges only $50 for a 20-foot container and $100 for a 40-foot container, regardless of the impact on our roads, our ports, or our landfills. That rate is no longer sustainable. This bill seeks to address it by raising the 20-foot container rate to $100 and the 40-foot container rate to $200 and to add a new container rate for 45-foot flat rack containers which are the standard across the global shipping industry in the areas of heavy materials and construction. And it is important to note that we have only been charging the 40-foot rate despite 45-foot container rack rates and longer coming into this territory for many, many decades. And unlike value-based tariffs used in many neighboring jurisdictions, such as Barbados, Trinidad, or the Dominican Republic, the Virgin Islands uses a flat rate length-based system. Those countries impose stacked import duties, VAT, sales taxes based on the declared value of the goods and often leading to skyrocketing costs for shippers and consumers alike. Even in Puerto Rico, which does not have a container fee, they impose sales tax and 3:27:51 a use tax and up to 11.5% often applied even for basic necessities. By contrast, the Virgin Islands model is very simple and fair and very predictable. We assess a one-time flat rate fee based on the physical impact of the container length not to fluctuate price of the cargo. This provides clarity to the importers and prevents unexpected costs from being passed along to the consumers. It also ensures that while utilizing the heaviest infrastructure on our ports, roads and our waste systems that they contribute accordingly let me be clear even with the proposed adjustment that we're going to discuss today our container tax remains modest for instance a 100 000 container entering trinidad or barbados may incur up to 25 000 in layered taxes Under our system, the same container would pay a flat rate tax and at most a 6% excise tax. Far less punitive and far more transparent. In addition to that, if all of the products are USA made, that excise tax now becomes exempt in the sense of not being charged to the shipper. 3:30:07 And let's be realistic, while shipping companies may threaten to pass the cost along to consumers, the actual impact per item is negligible. When broken down, here's how we can take a scope of how it really works. For instance, if a container has 20,000 items at $100 for a 20-foot container, divided by 20 000 items that is five cents per item second example if a container has 10 000 items 100 divided by 10 000 items is one cent per item examples three if the container holds a thousand items 100 divided by a thousand items becomes 10 cents and it goes on and on we're talking about cents on the actual dollar with this implementation of this amendment. 3:31:31 While consumer cost sensitivity is a valid consideration, it's important to note that less than container load shipments, the typical method used by a majority of small and micro businesses, is the standard. And they are not subject to a container tax. Only businesses importing full containers will be impacted these are typically larger operators with the scales and the capacity to absorb strategic strategically manage modest cost increases it's important to place on a record that the container tax is not charged unless the container leaves the port versus picking up products at the port in a lcl which is a less than container on a pallet whereas the customer pays for the shipping and the excise only and if the products are all 3:32:30 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) 25 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance usa made they pay no excise again colleagues bill number 36-0039 strikes the right balance between economic growth and public accountability it helps us to meet our financial responsibilities without imposing broad consumption taxes on every resident it funds critical services from trash pickup to youth employment programs while keeping us competitive within our region colleagues i ask for your support of bill number three six dash zero zero three nine thank you mr chair uh thank you very much senator bolquez for presentation on bill number 36 0039 and the rules of engagement for this afternoon we'll hear from the testifiers we have We have Director Reimer, Director Lee, who are sending some testimony, which will be read into the record. We have Interim Director Griffith, as well as we have testimony from Mr. O'Bean from the Virgin Islands Tropical Shipping. I don't think we have received anything from Mr. Crowley, who is the Chairman and CEO of Crowley Shipping. So at this time, Mr. Reimer, you're recognized for your testimony. Good afternoon, honorable Senator Nouvelle E. Francis Jr., Chairman of the Committee on Budget Appropriations and Finance, members of the Committee on Budget Appropriations and Finance, other members of the 36th Legislature, and a viewing and listening audience. I am Julia Reimer Sr., Director of the Office of Management and Budget, hereby to provide testimony on bill number 36-0039 and as amended by amendment number 36304 the bill seeks to amend title 33 virgin islands code chapter 4 section 75 by increasing the cost for individuals firms corporation and other associations except those specifically exempt to bring containers or flat rack containers into the Virgin Islands. The cargo container tax rate in 2003 are $50 for containers to under 39 feet and $100 for containers over 40 feet. Adjusting for 22-year inflation, the revised rates will be approximately $100 for containers under 39 feet and $200 for containers over 40 feet. I'm also proposing the establishment of a container documentation fee of $25 per container to support administrative oversights, which is salary and benefits, or O&M, to audit container contents. Additionally, I propose the implementation of a recordation technology fee of $3 for containers to fund technology requirements improvement and enhancements. The proposed adjustments will increase the general fund revenues, container tax oversight, and technology. Current collection rates have doubled, and with adjustments and new fees, they will increase by 130 percent the projection below are based on 2024 data from the Department of Bureau of Internal Revenue for 19,315 containers which includes 3,142 under 39 feet and 16,173 over 40 feet these figures are used to calculate the projected revenues at a revised rates including new fees note flat racks revenues are not included in projections the projections are follows when the revenue in terms of it is implemented revenues from adjusted tax rates will be 3.4 five four eight million documentation process and fee will be four hundred and eighty three thousand and recordation technology fee will be approximately fifty eight thousand revenues and adjustments and 3:34:32 fees will be about four point one million dollars on an annual basis the The fiscal impact would be the following. The cargo container tax unchanged for over 22 years needs adjustment to account for inflation and administrative costs. This proposal aims to ensure sustainable revenue for fair taxation with minimal consumer impact by targeting cargo carriers. It also aims to provide consistent funding for government services, container tax oversight and adjustments based on the consumer price index. Whether the Office of Management and Budget agrees with the amendment of the law by increasing the continued tax that has gone long unchanged for 22 years, we disagree with the fund distribution. 3:37:08 The Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority is an autonomous instrumentality of the government of Virgin Islands with the ability to establish rates for solid waste collection and disposal and has failed to do so. Therefore, to continue to provide additional sources of tax revenues of Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority does not provide any incentives for VIWMA to address their revenue shortfalls. Therefore, providing additional revenues in the future is not available, nor good fiscal management. Senators, I am therefore proposing that the split for these fees, not to include O&M, be 75% to the General Fund and 25% to the Anti-Liter beautification program. This will give additional revenue to the General Fund and support the Summer Youth Program employment program in conclusion this proposal ensures the container cargo tax cargo container tax is modernized to reflect inflation and administrative cost enhancing revenue collection efficiency the recommendation legislative amendment will adjust outdated tax rates to increase general fund revenue introduce a document processing fee to cover administrative oversight and establish a cargo miscellaneous tax to capture non-containerized shipments and ensure fiscal sustainability while minimizing economic impact this concludes my testimony i'm available to answer any questions you may have thank you uh thank you very much uh director reimer for your testimony and next we'll go to the clerk for reading of the testimony from Joelle Lee, Director of Bureau of Internal Revenue. 3:37:51 Testimony of Director of the Virgin Islands Bureau of Internal Revenue before the Committee on Budget, Appropriation, and Finance. Greetings Honorable Senator Novel E. Francis Jr., Chairperson of the Committee on Budget, Appropriation, and Finance, members of the Committee, all other Senators present, and the listening and viewing audience. I am Joelle A. Lee, Director of the Virgin Islands Bureau of Internal Revenue. Thank you for allowing the Bureau to present testimony on bill number 36-0039 as amended by amendment number 36-304. The bill seeks to increase the container 3:39:30 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) 26 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance taxes as follows. For containers and flat racks up to 39 feet, the rate will increase from $50 to $100. For containers and flat racks that measure 40 feet, the container tax will be increased from $100 to $200. And for flat rack containers that measure 45 feet in length, the new fee will be $205. The Bureau reviewed last three years collections of the container tax and the average containers imported into the territory was under 39 feet, 3,153, 40 feet, 16,322. Based on the average importation, we can expect that the annual increase in revenues would be approximately under 39 feet $157,650, 40 feet $1,632,200. There is no prior history on the number of flat beads imported for 45 feet since the category did not exist previously. This would provide the Bureau with sufficient lead time to prepare the return, update our tax system and educate the taxpayers we will do our best to ensure that this can be done with within the 60 day in in Ackman period thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony this concludes the testimony for directly mr. chair thank you very much madam clerk next we'll go to director Griffith waste management for his testimony good day honorable senator Novell Francis, Chairman and other committee members of the 36th Legislature's Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance, and members of the viewing and listening audience. I'm Darrell Griffith, the Interim Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of the Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority. The Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority supports Bill 36-0039 that proposes to increase 3:40:25 the cost for individuals firms corporations and associations to bring containers or flat rack containers to the virgin islands and depositing 50 of the funds into the anti-litter and beautification fund of which 25 must be used for garbage collection solid waste trash removal and territory-wide beautification and 25 to fund a territorial anti-litter beautification summer program within the virgin islands waste management authority the authority's annual budget has been underfunded for its entire existence this has led the authority to accumulate an accounts payable of over 20 million dollars which translates to hundreds of local vendors being owed thousands of dollars over the three years i've been with the authorities serving as cfo and currently interim executive director the staff and i have worked to reduce the annual budget shortfall in 2023 the annual budget shortfall was 15 million dollars and now it is 5 million dollars and with the additional 5 million presented by the legislature that means that our accounts payable will not increase this year if the proposed legislation is enacted along with the garbage collection fees that waste management is presenting currently to the psc in 2026 the authority will have a budget that is better than break even it will be able to start repaying the 20 plus million owed to vendors. This will enable the authority to fully implement plans to thoroughly clean up the Virgin Islands with the assistance of its citizens. In St. Croix, in the next 12 to 24 months, the island will have no bin sites and only convenience centers. An example of a convenience center is the location in Peters Rest and the bin sites are in Mumbiju, Concordia and Cotton Valley. These bin sites will be replaced with new modern trash collection convenience center facilities that will be clean. In St. Thomas, the authority plans to increase house-to-house garbage collection using smaller garbage trucks. This initiative will be implemented gradually, starting with one community at a time. Once it is fully enacted, the bin sites serving these communities will be removed. St. Thomas is too beautiful to have garbage bins at every corner, and the residents deserve house-to-house garbage collection. I am delighted to hear that 25 percent of these funds would be allocated to fund a territorial anti-litter beautification summer program for kids in 1993 and 94 i participated in the anti-litter beautification summer program which fostered my love for the environment and a commitment to keeping the community clean i remember visiting numerous sites such as elena christian and local roads and beaches to help clean up the community i love this program and it would be an honor to restart it with the staff of the authority I'd like to take this time to thank both the solid waste and wastewater teams at the Waste Management Authority. We have seen significant improvements in garbage collection and wastewater management. To all the hard-working men and women of the Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority, thank you for your hard work. This concludes my testimony. The authority appreciates the Senate's efforts to provide waste management with the necessary financial resources to serve the community adequately. I stand ready to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you, sir. 3:42:28 thank you very much director griffith at this time um madam clerk we go ahead and read the testimony from a tropical shipment into the record july 2nd 2025 senator novel e francis jr 36 legislature of the virgin islands chair committee on budget appropriation and finance there is senator francis Jr. I present compliments to you and Senator Angel L. Bulkers Jr. on behalf of Tropical Shipping. I am Miss Nisha Obain, VI Trade Manager. I am unfortunately unable to attend the hearing on July 10th due to a family emergency off-island. I submit this letter to the Committee on Finance and Proposed Bill Number 36-0039 and its accompanying amendment number 36 does 304 I ask that it be submitted into record tropical shipping understands the intent of this legislation and the accompanying amendment which seeks to double the import fees for containers and flat racks used to safely transport goods materials and supplies to its customers in the territory it is important however to note that flat racks and containers are instruments of trade use for the safe carriage of goods and materials on containerized cargo vessels and they are also support the safe delivery of the cargo purchased by the co-signees customers our Our customers demand quality and timely delivery of cargo transportation services. The upkeep and maintenance of these instruments of trade are costly, and yes, the proposed doubling of the import fees as 3:45:47 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 27 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance proposed by this bill would require the shipping lines to recover those increased costs. Tropical Shipping is an ethical operated company, and we are fair in our business dealings. and we follow the laws of the territory. Tropical has been a trusted partner in this community and helping to support maintenance of the pristine condition of the territory is equally important to us because we live and work here as well. Thank you very much for allowing us to make a statement and we wish the people of the Virgin Islands continued success and growth in its economy. Respectfully, Nisha obeyed. This concludes the reading of the testimony, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, I'm Adam Clark. And again, that's the testimony from Tropical Shipping. Crowley Shipping was in fact invited to provide testimony, which they have not done thus far during this process. At this time, I'm gonna open up the floor for a four-minute discussion for my colleagues in respect to the bill before us, 36-0039. And before I do that, I wanted to ask you, Director Reimer, can you, what is the revenues for FY24 that came in for the container tax? 3:48:25 Approximately 1.75. 1.75 million, no, 1.0. And that funding goes into the general fund currently? Yes. All of it? Yes. All of it. okay thank you for that and at this time i'll open up the floor for questions and we'll recognize senator hubert frederick you ready yeah you recognize for your four minutes thank you very much mr chair good afternoon now listening dense colleagues testifiers my office and central staff. Let me go to Mr. Acting Director Griffith. I see your testimony is a little different from the OMB director in reference to the allocation of the potential revenues from this bill. The point was made that you are a semi-autonomous agency, which you do have the authority to generate your own revenues why would you still want to get revenues from this source because the virgin islands waste management authority currently receives about 95 percent of its revenue really from central government for the 10 months that i've been the the interim executive director. You should see in the newspaper, I've started to advertise garbage collection fees. So we're actually presenting that to the PSC, hopefully next month. So we're gonna increase the amount that we self-generate and that's gonna keep happening in the coming years. But there's no way for us to go from 95, 98% being central by the central government to 100% self-sufficiency within a short time have been the interim so we're we'll be able to generate close to six to nine million dollars with that so so that'll bring us to about 20 percent of the revenue being generated by the authority and every year i'll work on getting that increase so that we can um be self-sufficient but for for right now there is no way to go from 95 percent to to flip the script so wouldn't it be easier 3:49:06 for us to just give you an appropriation and and keep the revenues from this bill however you'd like to give me the money i will take it okay so no the the reason is it's a valid concern that these semi-autonomous agencies must in fact be self-sufficient that's the whole purpose of gaining that status and we have to find a way to to get you guys off of our financial support i agree 100 percent um in in due respect now if we temporarily gave you the money would that work um i i think so because what's what's happening it's a tiered approach to self-sufficiency like i said we're not going to be self-sufficient overnight so if the psc passes the garbage collection fees will be close to 20 self-sufficiency then there are other fees that we need to start charging to as well we have one minute we have a number of oil at littered at every bin site we have to charge for the importation of oil coming in we have tires over 1.5 million tires in this territory we have to start charging for the importation of that so that we can dispose of those things too as well so i am going to come with all of those things one at a time so that we can we can we can take advantage and take control of all the litter that's in the island so when you start 30 seconds generating revenues from like the tire disposal like if there's someone who's interested in picking that up um that's gonna help you towards self-sufficiency and so you have a bright future and potentially you know revenue generating avenues that you guys need to start working on oh we're actually working on it mr reimer has already warned me that um 3:51:28 how many years i have to uh to get off so we're we're in communication and uh he knows that we're working towards this too as well so it's it's it's not a pie in the sky thing this is one part at a time that we're we're working towards and making this happening okay director reimer uh your time at the mic um yes sir i appreciate your mr cherry if i can finish this i appreciate your honesty and your frankness about your position on this um bill and how the resources are allocated why why do you think beautification is is a good alternative so the beautification itself especially you program is a benefit to us this teaches them that here it is if you litter or you throw garbage on the side or you throw a refrigerator or stove etc here it is it's where you live it's like throwing trash in your own house and go sleep in it so by them being part of this program they'll understand they'll tell their friends it'll multiply the effect that here it is understand your environment and what you're doing to it. So for me, it's a better use of giving him the 25%, which is approximately about $900,000 and about $50,000, that he could run a proper program between the territory, not just St. Thomas, not St. Croix, but the whole territory on an annual basis that says not just summer alone, but he could run a regular internship program moving forward. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 3:53:15 I appreciate the time. Thank you very much, Senator Frederick. Point of information, Senator Bulka, as you recognize? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to place on a record, my numbers may be a little skewed, but I believe, at least since 3:54:41 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) 28 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance I've been a senator, that this body has appropriated somewhere along the lines of $30 million each year to the Waste Management Authority. And if there's some way that we can sort of scale back on that reliance, I think it's going to be a win, especially if it's a solid stream, it's going to be a win for them and us at the same time. thank you mr chair uh thank you very much senator volquez um real quickly before we go to the next senator which will be senator fonseca um i wanted to ask you director reimer in respect to the well first of all i think i heard the the word exemption use there's no exemptions to the container tax correct yes there's certain exemptions that fall within the code um here's what we have here senator so there's certain exemption that allows them to get exemptions give us a pallet etc so there's certain items that don't consider being containers that's not taxed under container tax if it's now a 20 foot trailer or a 60 40 foot trailer or a 39 whatever the case may be then it's taxed that's what the difference is yeah but the the issue is that what our conversation is respect to the containers correct under 39 and over 39 and in some instances over 40 correct so in terms of the exemption the exemptions come as it pertains to pallet correct not containers correct so there's no exemption for the containers there's an exemption for the others absolutely i just wanted to make sure that we're we're clear on that and in respect to the the weaning process of waste management can you agree or would you not agree in respect to allowing for there to be some weaning of the waste management off of the general fund and this will for the sake of discussion will help to drive that weaning off process so at this point you are adding additional revenues yes for the Waste Management Authority as he said there's 95 percent of his actual revenue is coming from the government of the virgin islands when he adds his his rates he's saying it's 20 percent if i add this next 1.8 million his number goes back down you see where you actually know you're going back and forth we want it to be a steady decline that he now is self-sufficient over a period of time myself and director grifford actually had these conversations where my expectation is between five and seven years that he can wean himself to the point where he's somewhere between 10 and 35 percent receiving funds from the government of the virgin islands not that he's still at the 95 or the 85 or the 75 we should not be 50 percent seven years from now for the wasteland authority who has the ability to charge rates so that's where we actually sat and had the conversation how do we get there and there's certain things that he's probably going to propose where he's telling me there's legislation on the books where we don't charge basically the housing authority to pick up their garbage and dispose of their garbage there's things we need to look at the environmental fees the hotels charge we need to look at also that the government of the virginals don't receive so there's plenty of things out there that we need to look at instead of going and taking the tax from the general fund versus there's fees out there there's probably low hanging fruit that we need to really address so we are just deal with that subject one time and come as one package that he can actually generate the revenues versus taking from the general fund uh so for the sake of this discussion 3:56:27 one of the tax that has been utilized for waste management as well as the tire tax correct and there have been discussion that that's not directly sent to um to waste management as as a matter of fact they continue to um to advocate for the the tire tax to be sent to them so this this seems to me a wash somewhat because then if you're able to identify this this direct funding source and ensure that it goes to waste management that will help you to then you know balance the amount that will be coming from the general fund technically or from you then directing or transferring that money over to waste management if he uh if he requests the tire tax i believe we will transfer it because about 1.8 million dollars sitting there currently so for us if he also decides to have a tax on he's right next to you know i know he you're talking about right i talking about the so while if he addresses the issue of charging for tires coming in territory we would get sent it to him because for us it's a bigger issue for waste management to handle and the government so that's what i'm telling you in terms of the container tax is one part of it but the 25 is one piece but where the risk is if the containers go down and you say 50 50 the revenues of the general fund go down and no longer we have that we have our revenue shortfall going forward that's why the split is what i'm recommending understood so point of information senator bulkins thank you uh mr chair um i would venture to say that 100 or at least 90 something percent of all the items that come into this territory will end up on waste management's doorstep and they will have to deal with it in some way shape or form because it will be at that point waste yep you know so um you know hence i wanted to place that on the record and i do i do agree with uh director ryman's statement concerning um the potential shortfall but we do know that we are in recovery mode and we do know that we're going to have a lot of work for the next decade so as for the next decade at least we can forecast to say that those containers are going to actually go up the amount i would venture 3:58:35 to say that thank you for the time mr chair uh thank you very much uh right before we go to senator fonseca um director i know you like to do three years analysis on assessment over have you been able to to glean what uh 23 24 25 look like for um this particular it's pretty flat it's yeah it's pretty close to between 19 and 20 000 containers okay very well thank you senator Mr. Fonseca, you're recognized for your four minutes. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. 4:00:42 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) 29 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance So I am definitely in favor of Bill No. 36-0039. It's been over 22 years. The container tax hasn't been modernized to reflect inflation and other increases of costs. You know, I kind of like, I'm leery about giving the budget director too much control because sometimes allotments don't happen. In this legislature here, I've found out that we would pass a bill, the governor would sign it, it becomes an act, it's law, but the OMB director has that special power of the money where he can declare due to financial diss and it's not fiscally responsible etc etc so the money never goes to the agency and as a matter of fact it's happened to us because um in august 16th i think it's 21st of 2024 the 35th legislature passed i think it was act 87 96 to give a million to the Roy Lester Snyder Hospital to help with the kidney dialysis. The hospital went and billed out the kidney dialysis. Here we had a hearing, the committee health hospitals on Monday, where when CKC closed down, you know, in an emergency, they were able to take all of the 37 patients. 4:01:11 But they mentioned to me they ain't give me the money. me the money they ain't got the money from omb in all that i had a little sidebar with the omb director i ain't going to tell you what you say but we got to be careful with giving him all this power because waste management authority we know has been underfunded for years and we know that waste management authority they were also here on monday they have serious infrastructure issues i I think he was telling me it's about $4 billion. You're funded. Give me those numbers again so the public can hear. 4:02:54 Yes, we've been funded with close to $4 billion for the sewer lines and a prudent replacement of the sewer system in the Virgin Islands. So that's for St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John. Okay, but with the lateral connections now to the main, that's an additional how much? Now, I didn't double-check my numbers. I said $600 million, so don't hold me to it. I'm going to have to double-check those numbers. And what those lateral connections mean, it's the connection from your home to the sewer line. 4:03:30 Okay, good. So it's a lot of money, about $4 billion to get these old collapsed sewer lines. I think you had clay lines and all of that. Correct. So that was Monday. Today is Thursday. last night I passed by back of Wynn was past this hotel and the same muck is still there. So when are you going to get to at least clean it up? I know you can't do the major repairs but put a power wash on it, a little clorox so the concrete could be shining, clean and it looks safe sanitary. One minute. Tell me when you're going to start that work. I'm going to have, my director of wastewater was out of the territory and came back yesterday so he's immediately going to start that we already have had conversations with Public Works and we're gonna contact Department of Health so we're gonna get that started before this week ends well it's up Mr. Chairman you see I have not a date you know if we're going to get this and we meet with that but anyway tomorrow okay but I do agree with the appropriation of the funds as is with the bill. I understand what the OMB director is saying, but this is not all that amount of money. Even with all adjustments, it's still less than $5 million. And the Waste Management Authority with the new garbage collection strategy, you're telling us that you're gonna be able to break even and you're gonna be able to start to pay that 20 million in accounts payable that you have, right? 4:04:07 Yes, sir. Okay, so that's great. I'd like to see when Waste Management Authority can actually come to a break even. So my vote will be to help the Waste Management Authority to get these additional revenues, because we all agree that the Waste Management Authority is almost in a state of crisis. It's probably in a state of crisis. And thank you, Mr. Chair, for the time. Thank you very much, Senator Fonseca. 4:05:44 Director Julie, you have a response? Director Reimer, you have a response to that? In regards to allotments, where he's talking about releasing funds to instrumentalities, you don't release when you have cash. So for myself, it's being fiscally irresponsible to start to release because you appropriate. So appropriations is just a document with cash is a whole other thing. Unless I print money, there will be no releases. I don't print money. so i have to coordinate with the department of finance in order to actually release funds moving forward so to say i'm going to give him a million dollars if we have it sure any day thank you the chair will not recognize senator potter milton potter you recognize for your four minutes thank you very much uh mr chair good afternoon to you colleagues especially good afternoon to our testifiers who before us today i'm not a member of the finance committee of the Committee on Budget Appropriations and Finance, so I don't get a vote here today, but I mean it's hard to argue that after 22 years it isn't time for us to focus on increasing the cargo container tax rates. It'll be really hard to argue against it. And I'm also inclined to support the 50-50 split, in spite of the eloquence of OMB director, just based on the urgent operation needs right now of the Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority. 4:06:13 And when you look at the urgent operational needs of the Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority, you have to look and directly connect it to the urgent needs of the people of the Virgin Islands, who rely on these services to have a safe and sanitary environment. So if there's a way to ease some of the pressure immediately from VA Wasteland Fund Authority, and Director Griffin has not been here very long in this interim capacity. So I can't put the blame on your shoulders for any delay in implementing the fee structure and all of that. But I definitely support an infusion of new revenues. I know historically, just about every year that I've been here, waste management has had to come to this body 4:07:49 Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified. VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0) 30 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance to ask for additional revenues, to pay vendors, to do all sorts of things. So I think they've been, I don't know, historically underfunded. And if you're on the fund, then the expectation that you're going to be successful is just an unrealistic expectation that we've set. So I'm in support of this. And hopefully, like both of the testifiers said, it can be a gradual weaning off of reliance of the central government. But Director Griffith, how much revenues? What's the anticipated collection revenues should your fee structure be approved by the PSC? 4:08:50 What do you anticipate collecting in new revenues based on this new fee structure? The new fee structure, the 100 percent revenue that will be generated would be a little bit over nine million dollars. We expect a 70 percent collection rate to get about 6.5 million dollars coming into the door. I wanted to ask the Director Reimer about the impact, the potential impact that the bill might have on consumer goods. And I know, I don't think you have the time to do any sort of real analysis so that we can get some numbers that we can be confident, you know, in terms of how will it really impact regular consumer one minute do you have any thoughts on the potential and i think i think in your testimony you said you didn't think it was going to be significant or something like that but but i you know and it's that's more anecdotal than scientific analysis correct but i just wanted to just talk a little bit about that so the the impact because you have the inflationary effect now as you have over the last 22 years and over the last few years because of course we had a couple things going on one was covid one was the storm 30 seconds as you know the cost and the prices of everything has skyrocketed here give you a classic example the common home or the the basic home in st croix for example you probably could have got between 100 and 100 200 000 now it's 300 and 400 000 which is the benchmark to actually see how far your inflation is actually going but at the end of the day for me this is such a negligible number for 22 years you haven't had a change imagine if you double if you just double the cost based on the current 19 000 actual containers committed to the vi the cost to tropical and crowley combined is 1.9 million so if they're doing 50 50 they don't see it there's a rounding error in their operation so for me to to pass on any costs, it's really not there. The grocery stores already increased their costs, so there will be no, you won't see it. That's what I'm seeing. 4:09:35 Thank you very much for your feedback, testifiers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Senator Potter. Director Reimer, who do you see as the individuals or companies that will be impacted by this? Who are the users or the beneficiaries of these containers? You're talking about the end user? Yes, your grocery stores. In the recovery process, it all depends on how much material they import. They're mostly going to be on flat racks. And now we don't have a charge currently for that. But that's where you're going to see an impact in terms of revenues, et cetera. The flat racks where you bring in the equipment, in terms of equipment, you might bring in supplies for construction, et cetera. But the containers will probably remain pretty consistent going forward because, of course, the material you're going to fit in the containers, so it's better put on a flat rack. all right so you said the grocery stores and the big box stores that's what i thought as well point of information senator frederick thank you very much mr chair mr reimer director right i just wanted to make sure we have some clarity on this issue um this is considered a consumer tax isn't it ultimately doesn't it just impact the consumer It shouldn't, but it might have a small impact, but it's really a tax on a business side of things. It has across the board. On the business side of it? 4:11:55 Individual, it's everybody. The business is passed on. But what I'm telling you is, for the last 22 years, you have benefited from it. What do you think your increase is really going to be? You're going to pass on a full $50? So, the reason why I brought that question up is this creeping habit we have to, we'll tax this, tax that, fee this, fee that, and ultimately it comes from one source. That's the consumer. So, I wanted to make sure, you know, we understood that ultimately, I don't care how negligible it is, it still comes down to who is the one who pays for it. 4:13:20 Ultimately, at some point, you're going to pay for it, but the point is you have a business that's running that here it is, if they go anywhere else, as the previous senator mentioned, they pay almost 25 percent on the containers. In our cases, we're paying less than seven. Our inflation is driving this argument so fast and so high. We don't have a choice but to incrementally have minuscule increases because the inflation rate is just so high and so we still suffer as as a territory because of the inflation rate thank you very much mr chair appreciate the time uh thank you very much senator um ifadric senator every lowest you recognize for your phone what's that hello one one one second is it on subject or um do you could wait until Please recognize the mic for his point of information. 4:14:05 Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies, Senator Lewis. But I just really wanted to touch on the, you know, this structure is consistent with global practices. We're charging by the size of the container. Smaller micro-businesses do not pay the full container cost. They have a LCL, a less than container load, and that does not incur a container tax. When you have a less than container load, you come to the port, you back up your truck, you put the pallet on, and you leave, and you just pay the shipping cost. If in fact you were to work with other LCL individuals in the event that I along with four other individuals decided to get a 20-foot container and all had pallets on that container, we did have to take the container off of the port, then we would split that cost 25% each way, which would be, you know, for the $100, it's just $25 a person. 4:15:07 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) 31 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance So I just wanted to place that on the record. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Senator Bulkers. Senator Avery Lois, you recognize for your four minutes, and then we'll come back to you, Senator James. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, colleagues. Good afternoon, testifiers. Good afternoon to the listening and viewing audience. Mr. Director Griffith, Interim Director. So I went to a little appointment, and I was listening to Hustle back here. So I hear you're going to shine up the road just behind Way North Passage. So let me tell you, we're going to shine from PMP, come all the way down. We can clean the gut them, the swelling, everything. You know my list of my guts who I've been complaining about where we had the issues. So we ain't going to please one. We're going to walk on everything. Sounds good. The people in PMP have been suffering for a long time too. so we go throw a little chlorine down a little pressure wash there too shine up their concrete and across the street come in front of chicken fry and everything but now getting back to business here currently when you go to a tire shop now they charge you for the disposal of a tire that's their fee or any of it any of it goes to waste management it doesn't go to waste management authority it does not so your 1.5 million tires this is uh previously that you that you collect around the island of waste management collection we're getting illegally dumped tires from tire companies too as well it's too many tires that are being deposited at these bin sites to be individuals you can't clean a bin site and then the next day there are 110 tires there that's not one or two people that's dropping off tires that has to be from these companies okay and i'm sorry if this question was asked before what is the authority's position if we start charging up front before these things come in to the territory that's what we're pushing forward for that and for 4:16:07 use for vehicles as well we're 100 behind that great so currently the landfill operator our operators. It's not responsible for the removal of the tires, the rubber. Correct. Just because we don't have the funds to afford to pay them to ship it off island. But Mr. Reimer has promised and I have the letter already sent to finance and the one sent to OMB today. So we should be getting 1.8 million dollars to at least do a couple of tires but it's it's 1.5 million so it's that'll probably cover uh maybe 30 000 tires so what i'm going to do instead of just shipping the tires off is we're going to buy the equipment this time to be able to do this ourselves so we don't go to contractors to ship it off island we clean it ourselves we pack it ourselves and we send it to either puerto rico or to florida one thing with two of you up there today you are making that seem like it's a big space like you're in the east wing and the west wing he in the west wing or something we talk on a regular basis right next to each other we talk and argue how are they with the current vendors how they were the current vendors i think that's a question for him. We issued a lot of 4:18:01 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. 9x Commissioner Jean-Pierre Oriel heard in this transcript as: Oriel 6x Senator Angel L. Bolques, Jr. heard in this transcript as: Angel Bulquez, Angel L. Bolques Jr., Balquez, Bulquez 6x Senator Avery Lewis heard in this transcript as: Avery Lois, Lewis, Lois 6x Senator Marise C. James the surname alone also matches: Javan James; Giovanni James Sr heard in this transcript as: James, Maurice James 5x Senator Dwayne DeGraff heard in this transcript as: DeGraff, Duane DeGraff 5x Senator Hubert Frederick heard in this transcript as: Frederick 5x Senator Milton E. Potter heard in this transcript as: Milton Potter, Potter 4x Senator Marvin Blyden heard in this transcript as: Blyden, Blyton, Marvin Blyton 4x Senator Ray Fonseca heard in this transcript as: Fonseca 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) 32 of 33 Legislature USVI · Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance 3x Senator Angel L. Bulkes Jr heard in this transcript as: Angel L. Bulkers Jr, Bulkers 3x Senator Novelle Francis heard in this transcript as: Nouvelle E. Francis Jr, Novel E. Francis Jr 2x Senator Angel L. Borges Jr heard in this transcript as: Angel L. Borges Jr. 2x Senator Carla Joseph the surname alone also matches: Clifford Joseph; Karla J. Joseph heard in this transcript as: Joseph 2x Senator Clifford Joseph 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 8609 Act 8609 · July 20, 2022 · An Act amending the Virgin Islands Code, title 3, chapter 18, section 302 relating the duties of the Department of Sports, Parks and Recreation to include the duty to develop neighborhood parks or recreation areas primarily designed to provide facilities for team, recreational or individual sports; amending title 3, chapter 22 section 401 to direct the Department to identify, supervise, administer, manage, regulate and control all sites within the Territorial Parks System; amending title 32, chapter 2 to establish the Division of Territorial Parks and Protected Areas within the Department of Planning and Natural Resources to establish and maintain a Territorial Parks System; amending title 3 Act 8515 Act 8515 · November 18, 2021 · An Act appropriating $920,000 to the Virgin Islands Port Authority for the construction of an aesthetically pleasing Cruz Bay fish market and to modify the existing concrete boat ramp and bulkhead at the Little Cruz Bay Dock, Cruz Bay, St. John; appropriating $580,000 to the Department of Public Works for the construction of a boat dock and slipway at Enighed Pond on the island of St. John; amending the Virgin Islands Code, title 27, chapter 4B, section 221(c) relating to criminal background checks for members of medical boards to make the Department of Health the recipient of the background check results and amending title 3, chapter 23, section 415(b)(2)(B) relating to the membership of th Referred to but not found in our acts corpus: Bill 36-0039 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) 33 of 33