At a Monday briefing, Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. detailed plans to use funds from the recently loosened $100 million line of credit, initially meant for disaster recovery, to address $50 million owed to vendors.
Earlier this month, Bryan requested the 35th V.I. Legislature either increase the government’s $150 million line of credit or authorize a new $50 million line to help cover the territory’s financial obligations. The proposal sparked criticism from some lawmakers, who raised concerns about the government’s fiscal management.
Despite the pushback, a majority of senators voted last week to lift restrictions on the existing $100 million credit line, freeing up the funds to allow Bryan to prioritize paying off vendor debts.
Monday, Bryan discussed how he plans to use the line of credit, of which about $80 million is available. He said the vendors are owed about $50 million. He said $14 million is in arrears at least six months and the rest isn’t any older than 90 days.
The entire line of credit won’t be used for payments, however, he said because a lot of them are advance purchases, invoices without purchase orders and emergency purchases.
“I’m going to tell the public today and please print it in the paper: you give the government of the Virgin Islands services without a purchase order, you’re not getting paid. Unless you have a letter from a commissioner saying it’s an emergency payment,” he said twice.
The governor estimated, per a study conducted, that as many as 40 percent of the bills lack an invoice or purchase order – “an employee problem” rather than a vendor problem that’s left the government now hunting down the bills.
“We have too many people going out incurring expenses against GVI without a purchase order and we can’t manage a government like that,” he said, adding that “every time we pay it down, we find new invoices.”
While the governor said he’s working to further tighten up the process with employees, he did add that just be conservative going into the new fiscal year on Tuesday, the could still be a five percent cut across government departments and agencies due to a late tax filing deadline in February and the lull in tourism during slow months like September and October.
Focusing on other bills passed by the Senate during last week’s session, Bryan also honed in on the $18 million in Epstein settlement funds appropriated for a mental health facility on St. Croix, for which he said the estimate came in at $240 million. Saying the territory “can’t afford” two mental health facilities but would benefit more from one fully staffed and operational one, Bryan said instead that last week, he and the commissioners of Health and Human Services toured the 40-bed Sea View Nursing Facility on St. Thomas. The governor said it is “mostly intact,” that he had signed a letter of intent with the seller and that it could be renovated more quickly with the funds.
Wrapping up the presser with a surprise announcement, Bryan revealed Julio Rhymer as the new director-nominee of the V.I. Office of Management and Budget, replacing Jenifer O’Neal, who resigned in June at the governor’s request. It’s a role he’s familiar with, Bryan said, having served in the same position under the previous administration for a little less than a year.
Asked how he would characterize his previous time on the job, and what lessons he took away, Rhymer said his first go-around had to do with bringing in disaster recovery funds, while this phase focuses on how to get those funds expended.
“What we have here now in lessons learned is how do we actually spend the funds that are available to grow the territory going forward,” he said, adding that his focus now is to “rebuild” OMB.
“Currently, and I looked at the organizational chart and the structure of OMB right now, there’s 30 vacancies in an agency that has 50 employees, so therefore there’s a willingness for me to rebuild that organization professionally,” he said, citing a list of previous directors – Justin Moorhead, Ira Mills and Debra Gottlieb among them – that he said came from within the agency.
“And now that we have to go back outside and bring me back here to actually build this agency, I want to actually build a team that can do the same thing, that replicates the past that actual makes a successful agency going into the future,” Rhymer said.
Rhymer has also held financial positions at the V.I. Water and Power Authority and Viya, along with the Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority.
Rhymer has two master’s degrees and served as OMB director for less than a year before taking a position at the Virgin Islands Telephone Corporation (Viya). He also worked at V.I. Water and Power Authority for almost six years. Rhymer said he will work on rebuilding the agency since there are around 35 employees in a department of 50.
Also joining Bryan at the briefing were:
- Office of Disaster Recovery Director Adrienne Williams-Octalien, who reported that the government has finalized all fixed-cost offers for the FEMA’s Public Assistance projects days before the deadline, Sept. 30. The documentation will allow federal funding to cover 98 percent of rebuilding for all projects under Section 428 Alternative Procedures. Critical facilities include schools, hospitals and utility systems that will be rebuilt to industry standards regardless of preexisting systems. Construction of the 241 projects must be completed in 11 years. Bryan praised the director for copious documentation a “major milestone.”
- Daryl Jaschen, VITEMA director, spoke about three storms currently in the Atlantic, none of which will likely affect the territory. “Kirk” is the most recently named storm. It is predicted to become a major hurricane by Wednesday but will track north. Jaschen cautioned residents to continue to pay attention to weather alerts because “the strength can change rapidly,” as seen with last week’s Hurricane Helene.
The Virgin Islands, especially St. Croix, continues to observe high temperatures with the risk of dehydration and heat stroke.
