The V.I. Public Finance Authority board on Thursday approved a resolution allocating $1.5 million to the V.I. Port Authority in what Gov. Albert Bryan Jr., who chairs the PFA board, described as a “peace offering” to the 36th Legislature.
The allocation came two months after the Senate Rules and Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a measure reprogramming $4.2 million in administrative fees collected by the PFA’s Hotel Development Financing Corporation as part of the government’s long-term effort to acquire Frenchman’s Reef. The measure called for allocations of $1 million to the V.I. Port Authority to support airlift on St. Croix, $500,000 to the V.I. Tourism Department for hotel development on St. Croix and $2,700,000 to be deposited in the government’s Budget Stabilization Fund.
PFA’s director of finance administration, Nathan Simmonds, said Thursday that after discussions with the Office of the Governor, the bill’s sponsors agreed to withdraw the measure if the PFA allocated $1.5 million for airlift and tourism subsidies itself.
“We thought it was inappropriate for the Legislature to be appropriating our administrative fees, and we did not want that precedent to be set,” he said. “So we actually had the discussion with the bill sponsor, and we agreed that we would request of the board to allocate that funding and prevent the Legislature from tampering with our administrative fees and setting a precedent that we would not like to continue.”
Board secretary Keith O’Neale Jr. noted that the PFA has already given VIPA millions to dredge the Charlotte Amalie Harbor.
“Trust me, I hate this as much as you. This is what we call a ‘peace offering’ with the Legislature, because the Legislature don’t have no authorization to use PFA money,” Bryan said before suggesting that they amend the resolution.
According to Bryan, issues at the Anguilla landfill on St. Croix caused VIPA to incur a $1.5 million Federal Aviation Administration fine, which the Port Authority in turn sought from the V.I. Waste Management Authority. The amended resolution framed the $1.5 million allocation as a payment to the Port Authority on behalf of Waste Management.
The board also authorized a three-year, $60 million contract with Ceres Environmental Services to manage waste created by the territory’s major disaster recovery projects and a nearly half million-dollar contract with Apex Construction to repair a hurricane-damaged home. The PFA then approved an $80,000 allocation from the authority’s private fund to the nonprofit Junior Achievement USVI and nearly $140,000 to the V.I. Sports, Parks and Recreation Department for lighting at the Ezra Fredericks Ballpark on St. Thomas and two turf soccer fields.
