Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg is again charging that Innovative Communication Corp. has moved workers from its subsidiary companies to the payroll of its tax-exempt V.I. Telephone Corp. – and this time he is naming names.
Pointing to a list of Vitelco employees, Donastorg singled out nearly a dozen who actually work for other companies including five longtime Daily News employees.
ICC owns Vitelco, Vitelcellular, Vitelcom, the Virgin Islands Daily News, St. Thomas-St. John Cable TV, St. Croix Cable TV, ICC TV and V.I. Powernet. ICC employs approximately 660 people and is owned by St. Croix businessman Jeffrey Prosser.
As an Industrial Development Commission tax beneficiary, Vitelco receives an almost across-the-board tax holiday in exchange for, among other things, employing 421 people.
Two weeks ago, ICC laid off 18 workers from several of its companies, including 12 from Vitelco. After the layoffs, Donastorg relaunched his campaign to have ICC investigated in light of anonymous complaints by some of the fired employees that they were on Vitelco's payroll even though they worked for one of ICC’s subsidiaries. Documents show that the same employees had to sign confidentiality agreements in order to receive their separation packages.
On Wednesday, Donastorg said he received a list of Vitelco employees in order to determine whether the phone company was complying with the IDC workforce mandates. According to Donastorg, at least 11 of those listed as Vitelco employees actually work for one of the other ICC subsidiaries. Those include Daily News employees Deborah McDonald, Yvrose Odlum, Verdelle Parsons, Cleo Hobson and Steve Caines; VitelCellular Marketing Director Victoria Squires; and VitleCom’s Sarah Hart, who was laid off two weeks ago.
McDonald is listed on the Daily News masthead as its controller. Caines is the newspaper's systems manager. Hobson is administrative assistant to the newspaper's top officials. Odlum and Parsons are longtime Daily News business office employees.
"Many of the people being paid by Vitelco are career cable TV and Daily News employees," Donastorg said. "This is blatant abuse both of the IDC tax-benefit program and of Vitelco’s status as a regulated public utility."
In a letter last week to V.I. Attorney General Iver Stridiron, Donastorg said ICC must be scrutinized because of its tax benefits. He said the lateral transfers of subsidiary employees onto the phone company’s books are an attempt to take advantage of Vitelco’s tax breaks and force telephone ratepayers to subsidize ICC’s other enterprises.
"This is an organized effort to falsify compliance with its IDC agreement and to take advantage of Vitelco’s tax- exempt status by paying employees from (ICC subsidiaries) through Vitelco," Donastorg said.
ICC REMAINS SILENT
One of those listed as a Vitelco employee is former Sen. Holland Redfield.
When Redfield, who carries the title of director of corporate affairs for ICC, was asked by the Source to respond to Donastorg’s allegations last week. he adamantly denied that ICC subsidiary workers were being placed on the Vitelco payroll.
"It’s absolutely not true," said Redfield, who as a senator initiated IDC reform legislation.
After that statement, Redfield refused to answer further questions unless they were submitted in writing, which was done last Thursday afternoon. Neither Redfield nor any other ICC official has since responded.
However, Redfield’s claim that no ICC subsidiary employees have been placed on the Vitelco payroll runs counter to what ICC lawyers have said in court documents. In a lawsuit filed last year against ICC by St. Croix attorney Lee Rohn on behalf of former St. Croix Cable TV employee Larry Nyfield, Rohn alleged that her client was fired for complaining that he had been placed on Vitelco’s payroll and that his 401K retirement plan wasn’t transferred when he was.
In court documents, ICC attorneys admitted that Nyfield was "transferred to Vitelco as part of the consolidation of the marketing functions of all the ICC companies."
But Rohn alleges that ICC’s transferring of employees has more to do with tax benefits than consolidation.
"The IDC benefits require a certain number of employees and a certain percentage to be local," she said, "and they fell below that number."
A VIEW FROM THE IDC
The executive director of the IDC, Frandelle Gerard, said she is fully aware of the allegations forwarded by Donastorg and Rohn. But she said her job is "not rocket science."
"From where I sit, my area of concern is quite simple: (Vitelco) is supposed to provide ‘X’ number of full-time jobs. If they consolidated payroll that’s OK," she said. "Ideally we would want direct employees but we understand the shifting."
That’s because the telecommunications industry is merging and ICC subsidiary employees working in the cellular phone, cable TV and telephone
fields need to be cross-trained to cut costs and better serve customers. If employees from Vitelco’s sister companies are doing 35 hours or more of work a week for the phone company. they can be counted toward meeting the IDC mandates, Gerard said.
Still, she emphasized that it is Vitelco’s responsibility to separate the functions of the subsidiary employees working for the phone company and then charge the sister companies accordingly.
"For the purpose of Vitelco, what we have to look at is if the people are doing Vitelco work," Gerard said. "If a cable (TV) employee is doing Vitelco work, that person can count. It’s like leasing employees.
"They can’t load up costs that aren’t theirs, nor do we have indication that they have. If there is an ICC employee being paid through Vitelco, then the charge is to the other company."
Because Vitelco is guaranteed an 11 percent rate of return on expenses by the V.I. Public Services Commission, critics claim that padding the phone company’s payroll affects its bottom line. But Gerard said the rate-of-return issue lands in the PSC’s court, not the IDC’s.
"They have to be vigilant in the costing of the service," she said.
DONASTORG VS. THE PSC
Over the last two years, Donastorg has made several calls for the PSC to investigate Vitelco's rates. Those requests have been continually rebuffed by both the phone company and the PSC. But the PSC can no longer avoid the issue, he said.
"If this isn’t compelling evidence that we need a rate investigation, I don’t know what is," Donastorg said. "Rate payers are being forced to subsidize ICC’s other businesses every single month. I pointed this out to the PSC some time ago but they did nothing."
But Keithly Joseph, executive director of the PSC, said he has never been formally requested to look into the issues raised by Donastorg.
"I’ve never heard anything about it. I’ve never seen a piece of correspondence," Joseph said. "I have no complaint."
He said the PSC has a procedure in place that allows an utility to respond to a complaint. If the complainant isn’t satisfied with the utility’s response, a formal grievance can be filed and the PSC becomes involved.
"If we drag our feet responding, the Federal Communications Commission comes into play," Joseph said. "The FCC can’t do anything to those companies if you haven’t followed that procedure."
Attorney Rohn, meanwhile, echoed Donastorg’s complaint about the non-action of the PSC and the Attorney General’s Office. But Rohn said she doesn’t put much faith in the PSC to regulate Vitelco, likening it to the "fox guarding the chicken coop."
"We don’t want to file a complaint at the PSC because it is so loaded for Prosser," Rohn said.
Donastorg, meanwhile, said that in addition to the PSC and IDC, he plans to again contact the Attorney General’s Office, the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice.
HE SAYS, SHE SAYS
Meanwhile, both the IDC’s Gerard and Donastorg sit on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to Vitelco’s business practices. Gerard contends that even if the subsidiary employees are removed from the phone company’s payroll, it still exceeds IDC employment mandates.
"We did request information and we met with the beneficiary," she said. "To date and with the information we’ve gathered, we are satisfied. They have not violated the IDC rules and regulations."
Donastorg, however, is anything but satisfied.
"The bottom line is that this company is in violation of its IDC agreement," he said. "If I could determine this, the IDC should be able to as well. This territory could be entitled to millions of dollars in lost tax revenue as a result of these violations, not to mention the millions we have been charged for phone service throughout the years."

The Delta Sigma Theta Soroity invites all Greek organizations to Crucian Greekfest 2000 which begins at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 17th. A motorcade will leave from Villa la Reine Shoppiing Center to the Frederiksted Pool.
The highlight of the afternoon will be the Battle of the Greeks competition.
Ladies bring a dish, men bring drinks.

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, St. Croix Alumnae Chapter, invites all Greek Organizations to "Crucian Greekfest 2000" starting at 10:30 a.m.on Saturday, June 17.
Activities begin with a motorcade from Villa La Reine Shopping Center to the Frederiksted Pool.The highlight of the afternoon well be the Battle of the Greeks competition. Ladies bring a dish, men bring drinks.

Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg is again charging that Innovative Communication Corp. has moved workers from its subsidiary companies to the payroll of its tax-exempt V.I. Telephone Corp. – and this time he is naming names.
Pointing to a list of Vitelco employees, Donastorg singled out nearly a dozen who actually work for other companies including five longtime Daily News employees.
ICC owns Vitelco, Vitelcellular, Vitelcom, the Virgin Islands Daily News, St. Thomas-St. John Cable TV, St. Croix Cable TV, ICC TV and V.I. Powernet. ICC employs approximately 660 people and is owned by St. Croix businessman Jeffrey Prosser.
As an Industrial Development Commission tax beneficiary, Vitelco receives an almost across-the-board tax holiday in exchange for, among other things, employing 421 people.
Two weeks ago, ICC laid off 18 workers from several of its companies, including 12 from Vitelco. After the layoffs, Donastorg relaunched his campaign to have ICC investigated in light of anonymous complaints by some of the fired employees that they were on Vitelco's payroll even though they worked for one of ICC’s subsidiaries. Documents show that the same employees had to sign confidentiality agreements in order to receive their separation packages.
On Wednesday, Donastorg said he received a list of Vitelco employees in order to determine whether the phone company was complying with the IDC workforce mandates. According to Donastorg, at least 11 of those listed as Vitelco employees actually work for one of the other ICC subsidiaries. Those include Daily News employees Deborah McDonald, Yvrose Odlum, Verdelle Parsons, Cleo Hobson and Steve Caines; VitelCellular Marketing Director Victoria Squires; and VitleCom’s Sarah Hart, who was laid off two weeks ago.
McDonald is listed on the Daily News masthead as its controller. Caines is the newspaper's systems manager. Hobson is administrative assistant to the newspaper's top officials. Odlum and Parsons are longtime Daily News business office employees.
"Many of the people being paid by Vitelco are career cable TV and Daily News employees," Donastorg said. "This is blatant abuse both of the IDC tax-benefit program and of Vitelco’s status as a regulated public utility."
In a letter last week to V.I. Attorney General Iver Stridiron, Donastorg said ICC must be scrutinized because of its tax benefits. He said the lateral transfers of subsidiary employees onto the phone company’s books are an attempt to take advantage of Vitelco’s tax breaks and force telephone ratepayers to subsidize ICC’s other enterprises.
"This is an organized effort to falsify compliance with its IDC agreement and to take advantage of Vitelco’s tax- exempt status by paying employees from (ICC subsidiaries) through Vitelco," Donastorg said.
ICC REMAINS SILENT
One of those listed as a Vitelco employee is former Sen. Holland Redfield.
When Redfield, who carries the title of director of corporate affairs for ICC, was asked by the Source to respond to Donastorg’s allegations last week. he adamantly denied that ICC subsidiary workers were being placed on the Vitelco payroll.
"It’s absolutely not true," said Redfield, who as a senator initiated IDC reform legislation.
After that statement, Redfield refused to answer further questions unless they were submitted in writing, which was done last Thursday afternoon. Neither Redfield nor any other ICC official has since responded.
However, Redfield’s claim that no ICC subsidiary employees have been placed on the Vitelco payroll runs counter to what ICC lawyers have said in court documents. In a lawsuit filed last year against ICC by St. Croix attorney Lee Rohn on behalf of former St. Croix Cable TV employee Larry Nyfield, Rohn alleged that her client was fired for complaining that he had been placed on Vitelco’s payroll and that his 401K retirement plan wasn’t transferred when he was.
In court documents, ICC attorneys admitted that Nyfield was "transferred to Vitelco as part of the consolidation of the marketing functions of all the ICC companies."
But Rohn alleges that ICC’s transferring of employees has more to do with tax benefits than consolidation.
"The IDC benefits require a certain number of employees and a certain percentage to be local," she said, "and they fell below that number."
A VIEW FROM THE IDC
The executive director of the IDC, Frandelle Gerard, said she is fully aware of the allegations forwarded by Donastorg and Rohn. But she said her job is "not rocket science."
"From where I sit, my area of concern is quite simple: (Vitelco) is supposed to provide ‘X’ number of full-time jobs. If they consolidated payroll that’s OK," she said. "Ideally we would want direct employees but we understand the shifting."
That’s because the telecommunications industry is merging and ICC subsidiary employees working in the cellular phone, cable TV and telephone
fields need to be cross-trained to cut costs and better serve customers. If employees from Vitelco’s sister companies are doing 35 hours or more of work a week for the phone company. they can be counted toward meeting the IDC mandates, Gerard said.
Still, she emphasized that it is Vitelco’s responsibility to separate the functions of the subsidiary employees working for the phone company and then charge the sister companies accordingly.
"For the purpose of Vitelco, what we have to look at is if the people are doing Vitelco work," Gerard said. "If a cable (TV) employee is doing Vitelco work, that person can count. It’s like leasing employees.
"They can’t load up costs that aren’t theirs, nor do we have indication that they have. If there is an ICC employee being paid through Vitelco, then the charge is to the other company."
Because Vitelco is guaranteed an 11 percent rate of return on expenses by the V.I. Public Services Commission, critics claim that padding the phone company’s payroll affects its bottom line. But Gerard said the rate-of-return issue lands in the PSC’s court, not the IDC’s.
"They have to be vigilant in the costing of the service," she said.
DONASTORG VS. THE PSC
Over the last two years, Donastorg has made several calls for the PSC to investigate Vitelco's rates. Those requests have been continually rebuffed by both the phone company and the PSC. But the PSC can no longer avoid the issue, he said.
"If this isn’t compelling evidence that we need a rate investigation, I don’t know what is," Donastorg said. "Rate payers are being forced to subsidize ICC’s other businesses every single month. I pointed this out to the PSC some time ago but they did nothing."
But Keithly Joseph, executive director of the PSC, said he has never been formally requested to look into the issues raised by Donastorg.
"I’ve never heard anything about it. I’ve never seen a piece of correspondence," Joseph said. "I have no complaint."
He said the PSC has a procedure in place that allows an utility to respond to a complaint. If the complainant isn’t satisfied with the utility’s response, a formal grievance can be filed and the PSC becomes involved.
"If we drag our feet responding, the Federal Communications Commission comes into play," Joseph said. "The FCC can’t do anything to those companies if you haven’t followed that procedure."
Attorney Rohn, meanwhile, echoed Donastorg’s complaint about the non-action of the PSC and the Attorney General’s Office. But Rohn said she doesn’t put much faith in the PSC to regulate Vitelco, likening it to the "fox guarding the chicken coop."
"We don’t want to file a complaint at the PSC because it is so loaded for Prosser," Rohn said.
Donastorg, meanwhile, said that in addition to the PSC and IDC, he plans to again contact the Attorney General’s Office, the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice.
HE SAYS, SHE SAYS
Meanwhile, both the IDC’s Gerard and Donastorg sit on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to Vitelco’s business practices. Gerard contends that even if the subsidiary employees are removed from the phone company’s payroll, it still exceeds IDC employment mandates.
"We did request information and we met with the beneficiary," she said. "To date and with the information we’ve gathered, we are satisfied. They have not violated the IDC rules and regulations."
Donastorg, however, is anything but satisfied.
"The bottom line is that this company is in violation of its IDC agreement," he said. "If I could determine this, the IDC should be able to as well. This territory could be entitled to millions of dollars in lost tax revenue as a result of these violations, not to mention the millions we have been charged for phone service throughout the years."

Dear Source,
While Education Commissioner Simmonds is busy telling everyone that her proposal to charge students $5 or $10 per week for transportation to public schools is legal, she (as well as all other Turnbull Administration officials) should be asking themselves if it is moral.
According to the Source, the VI Code states "it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Government of the Virgin Islands to provide free transportation for school-age children, residing within and without the urban areas of the Virgin Islands, to the schools which they attend."
Morally the law seems clear – free transportation for students attending public schools. While Commissioner Simmonds and her legal advisors may be able to conjure up something else, I hope the people of the Virgin Islands are not held hostage to her short-sightedness.
A democratic government (especially one in such dire fiscal crisis) must make the difficult decisions as to which services it must(not would like to) provide.
One would hope that this administration, facing the challenges that it does, would make education a priority. By charging transportation fees, those most needing an education (the lower end of the economic ladder) are most adversely affected. How can one improve themselves without an education?
Hopefully Commissioner Simmonds would agree that education is the highway out of poverty – a situation all too many Virgin Islanders find themselves in. A free education should be something accessible to all, no matter their economic or social or ethnic status.
If the commissioner is willing to be honest with the people of the Virgin Islands, she would have to admit that this is just another stop-gap (not long-term) measure to deal with the real problem – the lack of government financing for public education.
Instead of looking at new ways to make the people of the VI pay for educating their youth, she should be looking at new ways of budgeting the money Virgin Islanders already pay to educate their youth; new ways of demanding that education be given priority over such things as hiring the Governor's family members (How much could be paid toward the $5 or $10 weekly charge from what the government pays for nepotism and patronage for the Turnbull Administration?).
Is hiring the governor's sister or niece more important than providing an education or transportation for the territory's youth? Is the $45,000 per year paid to the Lt. Governor's wife for her token role in tourism worth the number of children (140 Virgin Island children) who might not be able to afford to go to school next year because of the bus fees? What about the governor's sister? His niece or nephew? What about his other family members? Are Virgin Islanders benefitting from their outrageous salaries? Is this administration willing to make the same (or at a minimum some) sacrifices that they are demanding of the people who put them in office? It is clear they are not.
While I usually disagree with Senator Hansen's lawsuits (finding them self-serving and frivolous), I must support her on this issue. Senator Baptiste is
calling for negotiations with this administration but, as those who have come before him will note, they have little meaning. This administration will agree to anything in the short-term without considering the long-term consequences or financial effects.
To ad insult to injury, I found all too common that the Source noted that June Archibald (who, last year, received a major salary increase) did not return phone calls – something that the territory's media people did not find surprising.
How many children could receive transportation for a year for what Ms. Archibald received in a salary increase only to not return phone calls from (the media) the people she is hired to serve? Then (and only then) Commissioner Simmonds can go in front of the people of the territory and tell them – in all honesty – that every dollar that her department is being spent judiciously and in the best interest of the students (and not the
exempt personnel) only then can she ask the people to give more. If she's not up to being honest with the people of the territory and doing the job right,
Commissioner Simmonds should step down. Instead of Governor Turnbull firing his appointees for speaking out against policies that his administration, and
lackeys line Simmonds support, he should promote those who speak out in the best interest of the people of the VI. Unfortunately, administration officials and the people of the Virgin Island know that this administration will fire, without hesitation, anyone who speaks the truth of against current policy.

The Virgin Islands Fire Services' investigation into Tuesday's fire at the Charlotte Amalie High School continues, with no conclusions other than that the fire appears to have been deliberately set.
One fire official said he expects the probe to be completed by week's end.
A wooden structure that housed three classrooms and storage space for football equipment was destroyed, along with its contents. The tackle football equipment, much of it brand new, was valued at $70,000.
Fire Marshal Glenn "Milo" Francis said the investigation so far has revealed the most extensive damage in the area of the suspected origin, just inside a doorway. That door evidently had been missing a portion of its locking mechanism for some time, leaving an opening large enough for something to be pushed through.
Francis said a physical education instructor reportedly found a partially burned piece of paper inside on a previous occasion, which suggests a possible earlier attempt at arson. As yet, no incendiary device or substance has been identified in connection with the blaze.
Two persons were questioned by police in connection with the fire,
one of them a 16-year-old student at CAHS, the other a 20-year-old man. Both were released after questioning. Law enforcement sources said police have "nothing concrete to go on, so the release of the two was in order."
Anyone with information on the fire should contact the V.I. Fire Service at 774-7610 or the Police Department at 774-4050.

The graduation speech of a St. John honor student was censored by school officials.
Julius E. Sprauve School Class of 2000 salutatorian Oswin Sewer Jr. wrote a message of two and a half pages. Three passages of the text the ninth grader carried to the podium Tuesday night and read to the audience seated in the Westin Resort ballroom had been obliterated with a "white-out" compound.
Oswin Sewer Sr. says his 14-year-old son's graduation speech was taken from him by a Sprauve English teacher Tuesday morning. The senior Sewer, himself a teacher at the school, said that in order to get the speech, he had to grab it out of the hand of a school official.
"I noticed them passing it around, and I went and asked them for it," Oswin's father said. "They wouldn't give it to me. I had to snatch it away from them. There was a lot of writing on it and apparently the English teacher was re-writing it."
One of the top-ranked student's deleted passages, near the end of the speech, read: "I was advised to deliver a positive message this evening. In doing so, I must let you know that I am troubled by decline in students' behavior and scholarship. During my ten years at Julius E. Sprauve School, I have never seen teachers' morale so low. Our classrooms are filthy, we lack drinking water and our physical plant is in need of care . . ."
Another deleted portion was a reference to Oswin's scores and those of some of his classmates on the national Terra Nova standardized tests when they were in the sixth grade: "Although some of us were ranked among the best in the nation, the news media only highlighted the low average and median scores and compared them with the scores of private prep schools. Very few people outside of the school knew that I had national percentile scores as high as 98 and a total score of 94."
The third deletion was of one sentence in Oswin's reminiscences about the various Sprauve educators who influenced him. Concluding a description of Culture Day fairs and parades at the school, it read: "I felt badly when those educational and fun activities ended with the transfer of Assistant Principal Mrs. Beverly January who always had our best interest at heart."
According to the senior Sewer, while he helped his son with his graduation speech, young Oswin wrote out of concern for his school. "It wasn't a political speech," his father said Wednesday. "It's just that he cares about his school. Being that the governor was there, it was a direct plea to do something about our school."
Gov. Charles W. Turnbull was in attendance at the graduation ceremony, along with St. John administrator Julien Harley, district schools Supt. Rosalia Payne, Sprauve School principal Shirley Joseph and other Education Department and government officials. All applauded as the honor student delivered the uncensored portions of his speech, a tribute to his teachers from kindergarten through ninth grade.
The final portion of the speech not delivered were these words at the end of the passage about the poor conditions at the school: "Governor Turnbull, Assistant Commissioner Michael, Superintendent Payne, as Larry Sewer said, we need care — care motivates our willingness to learn; care expresses love."
As Oswin left the podium, Turnbull offered him a handshake, which the teenager accepted reluctantly before sitting down. After the ceremony Tuesday night, the senior Sewer, who is also vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, St. Thomas-St. John Chapter, protested to the governor about the censoring of his son's address.
Sewer said Turnbull told him he would have to take his concerns to the superintendent. But Sewer said that as he and his wife, Laurel Hewitt Sewer, also is a public school teacher, approached Payne, she hurriedly left the ballroom with Harley.
Contacted at the Sprauve principal's office Wednesday, Joseph declined to comment, other than to call the speech incident "unpleasant." Payne, asked about the matter in her office at the Curriculum Center in Tutu Wednesday afternoon, said she had to leave for a meeting and declined further comment.
The elder Sewer said he preferred that his son not say anything to the news media about the situation.
"Each of his teachers, he trusted them," the father said of his son. "I didn't, but he did. I told him not to let that thing get out of his hand."
Laurel Hewitt Sewer reportedly now has the censored copy of her son's speech. Her husband said she is "considering her legal options."

Although Education Commissioner Ruby Simmonds said she has not finalized a plan to charge students to ride school buses, she maintained Wednesday that the department has the authority to do so.
At a meeting of the Senate Education Committee on St. Thomas to discuss ways to avoid charging $5 a week for elementary students to ride school buses and $10 for secondary school students, Simmonds said a 1964 law establishing free busing has been modified over the years.
While Simmonds didn’t give details in a press release about the revisions, she said two measures passed by previous Legislatures showed a clear intent to authorize the department to establish and collect reasonable fees for school bus transportation.
"At the Department of Education we have been guided by the principles that the most recent interpretation of legislative intent is controlling, especially in the face of drastic changes in our financial circumstances," Simmonds said.
Education Committee Chairman Norman Jn Baptiste said the meeting was "fruitful."
"The mere fact that the commissioner has said that it hasn’t been finalized shows this isn’t set in concrete," Baptiste said.
Simmonds said Education spends $5.4 million a year to provide transportation services for public and private school students, including boat transportation for students on St. John. The $5.4 million includes specialized service for special education students, she said.
"The fees to be charged will not cover the total cost of pupil transportation but will only serve to subsidize it by 50 percent," Simmonds said, adding that the Turnbull administration plans to issue a request for proposals within a month aimed at revamping Vitran and student transport.
Baptiste noted the cost of providing transportation to students and suggested a lower figure, such as 50 cents per ride. He also said that many of his colleagues want to do away with giving lump-sum budgets to departments in order to better manage funds.
"Yes, we can charge a fee," Baptiste said. "And it has to be a nominal fee and at the last resort."
To protest the fee proposal, parents of students are expected to march Thursday on the newly rededicated Government House in Christiansted. Jonathon James, president of the Parent Teachers Association at Pearl B. Larsen Elementary on St. Croix, said the march is to "let people in authority know we’re not going to pay the bus fee. We can’t afford it."
Sen. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen has said that if Simmonds doesn’t rescind the fee proposal, she will file a class-action lawsuit Thursday against the plan.

An 18-year-old student about to graduate from the Charlotte Amalie High School is being honored as the first Virgin Islander to win a four-year scholarship to Old Dominion University.
According to Episcopal Bishop Theodore Daniel, the scholarship being awarded to Nicole Turnbull was made possible by a new alliance formed between the dioscese of the Virgin Islands and its counterpart in Southern Virginia.
Daniel planned formally to announce Turnbull as the scholarship winner Wednesday night at the CAHS Honors Night ceremony.
Daniel said he first learned of the scholarship opporunity for a Virgin Islander while attending a convention. "I spoke at their convention in February and the young people who were present offered to sponsor one of our young people for a four-year scholarship to Old Dominion University," he said.
Through the church's companion dioscese program, Episcopalians/Anglicans from different regions assist one another. Virgin Islanders, in the course of their seven-month relationship, have made contributions to the Youth-at-Risk program and a church center's reconstruction fund for the Southern Virginian dioscese.
Back home, the availability of the scholarship was announced in all local Episcopal churches. Daniel said the application submitted by Turnbull, a parishioner at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, impressed the selection committee.
The bishop said one of the reasons he went to the convention was "to offer opportunities to our young people." He added, "It's really an exciting time for us in the diocese."
Turnbull still has to go through the process of applying for admission to Old Dominion. She says she hopes to pursue a medical education career.

Virgin Islands premier Little League all star Callix S. Crabbe was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 32nd round of the 2000 Major League amateur baseball draft on Tuesday.
A second baseman who will graduate from Georgia's Stone Mountain High School on Friday, Crabbe was the 970th selection overall.
Crabbe was the Charlotte Amalie High School starting shortstop during his freshman and sophomore years. CAHS won the Interscholastic Athletic Association varsity baseball championship both years — 1997 and 1998 – and was undefeated in his sophomore year. He transferred to Stone Mountain for his junior year.
If Crabbe signs with Atlanta, he will probably go to one of the Braves' rookie level teams — the Orlando Braves in Florida's Gulf Coast league or the Danville, Va., Braves of the Appalachian League. Both leagues begin play in late June and conclude in late August.
Crabbe, a perennial all-star, was a Little League starting shortstop for the Elrod Hendricks West in 1994 and 1995. In 1995, he was named best relief pitcher as he accumulated the most saves in that year's Latin American Little League tournament in Maracaibo, Venezuela. The Virgin Islands won its division but finished third overall.
Although the weather is ideal, the opportunity for baseball players to gain exposure is limited in the territory. For example, teams played only eight games apiece in the local Interscholastic Athletic Association varsity baseball league. On the mainland, teams typically play about 40 games in a season.
"He improved his chances of being drafted by moving to the mainland United States to finish his high school education," Crabbe's Little League all-star manager, Michael Bute noted. "There is very little that could have been offered to him on St. Thomas."
Crabbe was an Elrod Hendricks West senior league all star from 1996 through 1998. His senior league all-star manager, Alvin "Bello" Richards, said that what he needs to do now is "to focus on the positive and continue to do the hard things to make him better and put him on top."