A "bare-bones budget" is being proposed for fiscal year 2010, but Planning and Natural Resources Commissioner Robert Mathes told senators Tuesday his department is ready to "do more with less."
DPNR’s overall FY 2010 budget is a little more than $34 million, including $20.5 million from federal grants, $4.8 million in special funds and about $8.6 million from the General Fund. The V.I. Cultural Heritage Institute and Council on the Arts — located under DPNR for budgetary purposes — are set to receive $225,000 and $743,208, respectively, in the miscellaneous section of the budget.
The General Fund portion of the budget — down from about $8.8 million in FY 2009 — has been cut by three percent, much like every other department and agency, Mathes explained during Tuesday’s Appropriations and Budget Committee hearing. To accommodate the cut, DPNR consolidated or closed its storage areas, used federal grant funds to pay for federally funded positions that require a General Fund match and used of a portion of its indirect costs funds to supplement some its federally funded positions.
Of the overall budget amount, nearly $1.1 million is slated for DPNR’s executive office, $1.6 million for the Business and Administrative Services division, $1.7 million for Environmental Enforcement, $2.1 million for Permits, $3.3 million for Coastal Zone Management, $573,930 for Comprehensive and Coastal Zone Planning, $529,373 for archeology and Historic Preservation, $3.2 for Libraries, Archives and Museums, a little more than $4 million for Fish and Wildlife and $13 million for Environmental Protection.
Though money is tight, the department does have a list of goals and objectives it plans to get through in FY 2010, Mathes said. Among them:
- completely install an in-house accounting system that links up with the government’s new Enterprise Resource Planning System;
- start construction on an archeology lab;
- finish developing a coastal and estuarine land conservation program;
- find funding to revise and update local zoning and subdivision codes;
- and implement an electronic permitting system.
Issues raised during Tuesday’s meeting ranged from the proposed depositing of spoils into the infamous Lindbergh Bay dredge hole to the department’s plan for regulating communications towers throughout the territory.
Fish and Wildlife Acting Director Ruth Gomez said concerns over the Lindbergh Bay project were recently raised by the Army Corps of Engineers’ chief engineer, who was alerted by local residents that a leatherback turtle had recently begun to nest on the beach. Were it not for the turtle, the Army Corps concerns would probably be minimal, she added.
Tackling the issue of communications towers, Mathes explained later in the meeting that a draft of the new rules and regulations has been completed and is expected to be finalized by next month. He spoke of the implementation of a "mesh" network of smaller antennas that could replace some of the bigger towers.
Mathes also said earlier in the meeting that a consent decree between DNPR, Hovensa, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Justice Department should be filed before the end of the year. Formal negotiations between the parties wrapped in June, leaving only some "minor tweaking" to be done to the document, he explained.
"With implementation of the consent decree, now estimated to commence in 2010 and take six years at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, air quality on St. Croix and the region will be significantly improved," Mathes said.
Present during Tuesday’s meeting were Sens. Craig W. Barshinger, Carlton "Ital" Dowe, Wayne James, Shawn-Michael Malone, Terrence "Positive" Nelson, Usie R. Richards, Sammuel Sanes and Patrick Simeon Sprauve.
