The Finance Committee voted out a $21 million lump-sum budget for the V.I. Legislature on Monday, while acting on 28 separate appropriations bills that form much of the government’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget. [Bill 30-0492]
Last year’s V.I. Legislature budget was $19 million, (See Related Links below) so this year’s budget is a $3 million, 15 percent increase, from the year before. The Legislature’s FY13 budget was $17.8 million.
Overall the budget bills appear to be close, but a little different from the proposed budgets discussed by each agency during budget hearings this summer. For example, the governor’s FY15 recommended budget for the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands is $26.9 million from the General Fund, while the court requested $31.28 million. The budget bill appropriates $27.7 million to the Superior Court – more than proposed, but well under the request. [Bill 30-0491]
Minority senators expressed discomfort voting for a number of the bills, saying they felt they did not see tangible evidence of funding sources for the expenditures and wanted more information than they had been given. Some also said they were frustrated, as members of the minority, in getting their concerns addressed. While all the bills passed, in several instances, minority Sens. Judi Buckley, Terrence "Positive" Nelson and Nereida "Nellie" Rivera-O’Reilly voted no.
Sen. Donald Cole, the majority leader, said that he understood the frustration of minority members but said that was part of being in an elected body. “We’re a majority versus a minority,” said Cole. “That’s the structure of the government and I can see what my colleagues are saying – that they participate and they go forward and they put in. [But] that’s the process,” he said.
As far as funding, Cole said, the budget is based on projections of revenues coming in over the year, not money in the bank right now.
“When we pass a budget here and the governor signs it into law, $617 million is not sitting in the bank. As we collect the taxes and they’re placed in the General Fund and the different funds, what the Legislature does is appropriate. The governor can’t spend any money unless this body appropriates it,” Cole said.
All measures approved in the Committee on Finance will be forwarded to the Committee on Rules and Judiciary for further consideration.
Present were Buckley, Cole, Nelson, Rivera-O’Reilly, Sens. Myron Jackson and Clarence Payne. Sen. Craig Barshinger was also present.
