Every government agency’s budget, allotments, expenses and all the recipients of V.I. tax dollars will be viewable online through a searchable website, if funding is found and a bill sent out of committee Monday is enacted into law.
Sponsored by Sen. Nereida "Nellie" Rivera-O’Reilly, the bill mandates the V.I. Bureau of Information Technology to set up the website and maintain databases of all the agency information.
Officials from the BIT and Finance Department testified in support of the concept, but raised concerns about funding and the details of how it would be set up.
Acting Director Angel Turnbull testified BIT would need to design the financial database and get enough secure storage capacity to hold data going at least 10 years back and to grow as it goes forward. Implementing it "would require substantial funds as well as software design skills not currently available at BIT," Turnbull testified.
The concept of a publicly accessible database "is something every elected official should embrace," said Finance Commissioner Angel Dawson. "But the devil is in the details," he said, going on to raise concerns about whether some of the information may raise confidentiality issues.
Dawson also asked how "granular" the information should be, saying it matters if it captures every check that is over $1,000 or also those less than $1,000 or how the dividing line is drawn.
O’Reilly responded to Dawson that she expected Finance to set up the particulars, including how granular the data should be. She said she believed BIT should be able to do the work without dramatic increases in funding.
"With your mandate, you are supposed to be savvy in the technical realm," O’Reilly said to Turnbull. "I think you need to believe in yourself and your people," she said.
After some technical amendments, the committee voted to send the measure on for further consideration in the Rules and Judiciary Committee.
Voting to send the measure on were Sens. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen, Neville James, Terrence "Positive" Nelson and Shawn-Michael Malone. Sens. Louis Hill, Patrick Sprauve and Janette Millin-Young were absent.
After the vote, Hansen left, saying she had an appointment to attend to. At that point, the committee no longer had a quorum and was unable to vote, but proceeded to take testimony on two more bills, which were held for votes at the next committee hearing.
One bill, sponsored by O’Reilly and Sen. Sammuel Sanes, would authorize the V.I. Public Finance Authority to issue a request for proposals for a Colonial Williamsburg-like "cultural historical and ecological adventure" theme park and tourist attraction, presenting St. Croix history and culture in an entertaining way to visitors.
Tourism Commissioner Beverly Nicholson Doty and V.I. Port Authority Assistant Director David Mapp joined Dawson in testifying in support of the concept. The bill initially called for a water park, but O’Reilly proposed an amendment changing it to the cultural theme park, saying that fit better with the V.I. Port Authority’s efforts to brand St. Croix to cruise ship passengers.
The committee also discussed a lionfish control measure proposed by O’Reilly and Russell that would begin setting up a system to pay bounties to divers and fishers who catch the invasive species.
While aimed largely at the noxious, poison-spined invading fish, the bill has been amended since its introduction a year and a half ago to include any invasive wildlife, then held pending finding a funding source, Russell said. The bill is back before the committee because funding has been found through the Fish and Game fund, Russell said.
Both measures were held due to a lack of a quorum.
