Sept. 10, 2001 – Inspired by Mark Marin's donation of his eyes, heart, lungs and kidneys, Sen. Lorraine Berry is seeking to establish an organ donor identification card in honor of the former Antilles School headmaster, who died on July 25.
Berry's initiative is to amend the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act in the V.I. Code to establish the Mark C. Marin Organ Donor Identification Card and authorize its issuance to individuals who have made a determination to donate all or parts of their body upon death.
Marin's gift helped to save and enhance the lives of several people — and, by extension, the families and loved ones of the patients who received his organs. Had he not discussed his desire to be an organ donor with family members, his wish might not have been carried out. There is a small window of opportunity, time wise, to "harvest" organs from donors and make them available to be transplanted into recipients.
Although an organ donor card indicates the donor's wishes, family members are always asked to provide consent before donation can occur, according to Kim Tirrell, clinical care coordinator at the Roy L. Schneider Hospital. "That's why it is very important to make your wishes known to family and friends," she said.
A patient must be declared brain dead — a state of irreversible cessation of all functions of the brain — in order to be considered a candidate for donation.
Tirrell, who helps coordinate the hospital's organ donation program, reports all deaths and suspected brain deaths to Life Link, the organ procurement agency in Puerto Rico assigned to the Virgin Islands. When a suspected brain death occurs, Life Link representatives will travel to the territory to confirm it and to discuss the possibility of organ donation with the patient's family.
"We don't have a lot of patients who meet these criteria," Tirrell said. Since the beginning of this year, there have been just two opportunities for organ donation in the Virgin Islands, she said. In both cases, family members did not consent to donation. (Marin died after being transported to Florida for medical care.)
While "families are totally within their right to decline," Tirrell said, she feels there needs to be more public awareness about the benefits of organ donation. "Sometimes organ donation can help grieving families feel that their loved one hasn't died in vain," she noted.
She explained that organs are removed surgically so as not to disfigure the body, something which is often of concern to family members.
According to information posted on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services web site, about 5,500 people die each year in the United States while waiting for an organ to be donated. The web site states, "Each day, about 60 people receive an organ transplant, but another 15 on the waiting list die because not enough organs are available."
The site also notes there is a great need for minorities to be organ donors. Some diseases are found more frequently in racial and ethnic minority populations than in the general population. Tirrell said the majority of people in the Virgin Islands awaiting organ transplants suffer from kidney diseases.
According to the Health and Human Services web site, "Successful transplantation often is enhanced by the matching of organs between members of the same ethnic and racial group. For example, any patient is less likely to reject a kidney if it is donated by an individual who is genetically similar. Generally, people are genetically more similar to people of their own ethnicity or race than to people of other races. Therefore, a shortage of organs donated by minorities can contribute to death and longer waiting periods for transplants for minorities."
Tirrell hopes that greater awareness in the community will encourage more opportunities for organ donation. Schneider Hospital is looking for a spokesperson to help educate the public about organ donation, she said.
The language of Berry's amendment bill as drafted specifies that prospective organ donors must make their wishes clear in a "will." However, a member of her staff indicated that this need not necessarily mean a formal, written will — something few young people have, for example; it could be any written statement that a person makes.
The current law clearly states that "a gift of all or part of the body may also be made by a document other than a will. The document, which may be a card designed to be carried on the person, must be signed by the donor in the presence of two witnesses who must sign the document in his presence."
Nowadays, many states allow individuals to indicate their willingness to be organ donors on their drivers' licenses.

Sept. 10, 2001 – June A. Adams and Ray K. Joseph have been renominated by Gov. Charles W. Turnbull to second terms on the Roy L. Schneider Hospital and Health Facilities Corporation Board.
Adams, a St. Thomas resident, is a licensed practical nurse who spent 35 years with the Health Department in various capacities until her retirement in 1992. She is a member of the National Licensed Practical Nurses Association and has served as national president and secretary of that association.
Joseph, a St. John resident, retired several years ago as pastor of Emmaus and Bethany Moravian Churches on St. John. He also serves on the Council on Alcoholism St. Thomas-St. John Board.
Other current members of the Schneider Hospital board are Dr. Ira Buchalter, Samuel W. Topp, Horace Brooks and Beverly Chongasing, all of St. Thomas; and Natalie Thomas of St. John. Chongasing serve as president of the board.
Adams and Joseph also serve on the territorial Hospital and Health Facilities Corporation Board. Adams fulfulls the legal requirement that a nurse serve on that board. Joseph meets the requirement that a St. John resident hold a seat.

Sept. 10, 2001 – The governor's Fiscal Year 2002 budget "is built on shifting sand," the League of Women Voters has concluded after analyzing the proposal, particularly its anticipated $28 million increase in revenues with no change in the tax structure.
That increase "is based only on [a projected] increase in individual income taxes," the league said in a statement, and there are compelling reasons to believe that such a projection is not realistic.
Gov. Charles W. Turnbull announced in June that the government would receive a previously unanticipated windfall of about $100 million in tax revenues for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. On July 16, six weeks late, he submitted his proposed FY 2002 budget — increased to $551 million from last year's $429.6 million.
In June, the governor sought from the Legislature and got — from the majority bloc — approval to spend another $100 million this fiscal year for unionized government employees' step increases, school repairs and increased health-insurance premiums. In July, Turnbull sought the supplemental appropriation of another $47.2 million, which the Legislature upped to $64.5 million and the governor with vetoes trimmed back to about $55.6 million.
In his proposed 2002 budget, Turnbull indicated he is counting on an upswing in the local economy to fund the increased expenditures projected for FY 2002, although the national economy has taken a downturn this year.
The proposed budget "appears on the surface to be able to meet most of its needs," the league said in a statement released Friday. "But that rosy picture" of Fiscal Year 2002 revenues "is like the pink evening clouds of the Virgin Islands that quickly fade away as the sun sets."
At a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Aug. 22, Ira Mills, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said administration initiatives had created an "improved environment poised for private-sector investment." As "proof of the economic revitalization of the territory" he cited the planned Botany Bay Resort development, "estimated at $200 million." Although civic and environmental groups are on record as opposing that not-yet-approved project, Mills said he felt the potential development should be included in private-sector projections.
At that same meeting, the Internal Revenue Bureau director, Louis Willis, estimated total revenues for the current fiscal year at $488, up from $447.4 million in FY 2000. He said a record high $404.2 million had been received as of July. Government officials have attributed the increase in revenue to a small number of wealthy individuals' income taxes.
Mills also told the Senate committee that government initiatives are expected to attract new investment in addition to about $200 million in public-sector project financing and more than $900 million in private-sector spending projects "either ongoing or slated to begin in Fiscal Years 2001 and 2002." He did not give specifics.
However, at an Aug. 11 LWV meeting, Mills provided statistics that put the government's current accumulated deficit and other obligations at $592.2 million. He gave the breakdown as $286.8 million in back pay owed government workers, $227.7 million in accumulated deficit from FY 1999, $62.1 million owed vendors, and $15.6 million owed as income-tax refunds. The income-tax figure did not take into account the 2001 tax credits due under President George W. Bush's plan to stimulate the national economy; Mills has estimated the government's liability for those payments at $9 million and has said they will be given as a credit when Virgin Islanders file their 2001 income-tax returns next year. On the mainland, the U.S. Treasury began sending out checks for the credits in July.
In its Friday statement, the LWV also cited Willis as having said at the Aug. 11 meeting that the federally mandated Earned-Income Credit due lower-income taxpayers has been paid through calendar year 2000 "as unfunded, unbudgeted tax refunds averaging $13 million per year and has exceeded $90 million total over the last seven years." The statement said the league supports Willis's position "that unfunded federally imposed obligations such as the Earned-Income Credit must not continue to drain the treasury of the Virgin Islands." The statement noted that the mandated payment "was, once again, not included" in the governor's FY 2002 budget.
Also it said, the budget includes $6 million for prior-year obligations to vendors and others that actually amount to about $40 million. That is the amount remaining after partial payment this year of the $62.1 million in obligations cited by Mills at the Aug. 11 meeting, including money owed the Water and Power Authority and some vendors.
The LWV further stated that 2002 budget also omits any provision for:
– $197 million in loans and interest owed the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
– $286.8 million — the figure cited by Mills — owed government workers in retroactive salary increases.
– $37 million claimed in court action for administrative costs by the Government Employees Retirement System.
– $23 million liability resulting from early retirement laws and subsequent amendments.
– A Reserve or Contingency Fund.
The league noted that the administration is seeking to have the FEMA debts forgiven and that negotiations may reduce the retroactive liability, but — since neither is a done deal — questioned whether the budget "is truly in balance."
The LWV statement also questioned how realistic it is to project collecting "a minimum of 31 percent" of the $90 million in individual income tax that is receivable. And, it said, "what assurances does the government have" that this year's anticipated $100 million tax windfall "is not a one-time occurrence?"
Stating that the government's personnel attrition plan was "repealed in its entirety through the supplement budget" passed recently, "opening the potential for indiscriminate hiring," the league further noted that in addition to salaries, the government is responsible for fringe benefits that add another 33 percent to base pay.
It also noted that the government has continued to absorb increased health-insurance premium costs for both employees and retirees. The FY 2002 budget contains $12 million for such increased costs for workers and $8.1 million for retirees. With a new health-insurance contract in negotiation, the league said, FY 2002 could be "the time to begin a 50-50 cost-sharing of this responsibility."
The governor's budget includes one new revenue-generating measure: the imposition of a $10 "motor vehicle disposal" fee that would be a surcharge to the annual registration fee. The money is entirely earmarked for the Anti-Litter and Beautification Fund, to pay for disposing of abandoned vehicles. Assuming there are approximately 40,000 motor vehicles registered in the territory, that would generate about $400,000.

Sept. 10, 2001 — An unknown individual has been making long-distance calls at the expense of some AT&T business customers, but not without their help.
According to AT&T spokeswoman Claudia LaBorde, the phone company has been informed about the scam, which involves a man who says he is an AT&T Virgin Islands employee conducting a "underground wire test." He calls business customers with PABX switches and then requests that the operator provide him with a dial tone by dialing nine, then zero. By doing so, the business gives the caller long-distance access at the expense of the business.
Most of the reports have come from St. Croix, La Borde said, "but that doesn't mean he won't try on St. Thomas."
La Borde said AT&T Virgin Islands is not conducting any testing of this nature. She urged businesses to deny access of this nature to any caller representing himself as an employee of AT&T, or call AT&T Virgin Islands for confirmation of any testing.

The Arthur A. Richards Jr. High Parent Teachers Association will hold its first meeting of the 2001-2002 school year at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 23, in the school's auditorium.
Parents and guardians are urged to attend and to be on time for this important meeting.

The Juanita Gardine Elementary School will hold its Back to SChool Night from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 12, in the school's cafeteria.
Parents and guardians are urged to come and hear the expectations for the 2001-2001 school year, meet the faculty and share in the refreshments.

The Arthur A. Richards Jr. High School will hold its first Parent Teachers Association meeting at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 23, in the school's auditorium.
Parents and guardians are urged to attend and to be on time for this important meeting.

The Juanita Gardine Elementary School will hold its Back to School Night from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 12, in the school's cafeteria.
Parents and guardians are urged to come and hear the expectations for the 2001-2001 school year, meet the school's faculty and share in the refreshments.

All venders and pwople interested in becoming a Harbour Night vendor will meet at 6 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 14, at Pier 69 in Frederiksted.
The meeting will address Harbour Night changes for the 2001-2001 season and concerns of returning and new Harbour Night vendors. Come prepared to register for the new season.

All Harbour Night vendors and people interested in becoming venders will meet at 6 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 14, at Pier 69 in Frederiksted.
The meeting will address Harbour Night changes for 2001-2002 season and concerns of returning and new Harbour Night vendors.
Come prepared to register for the new season.