The Senate Finance Committee will hear an overview of the Fiscal Year 2001 Budget at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 20, in the Senate Chambers on St. Thomas, Committee Chair Lorraine Berry announced last week.
Invited to testify at the budget overview are Lt. Gov. Gerard Luz James II; Rudolph Krigger, the governor's assistant for fiscal and economic affairs; Ira Mills, director of the Office of Management and Budget; Bernice Turnbull, Finance commissioner; Louis Willis, acting Internal Revenue Bureau director; Roy Martin, tax assessor and Lauritz Mills, Bureau of Economic Research acting director.
Two days of public hearings will follow the overview. The first hearing will be at 10 a.m. Thursday in the Legislative Conference Room on St. Croix, followed by a Friday hearing at 10 a.m. in the Senate Chambers on St. Thomas.
The meetings will hear testimony from Mills, Karen Andrews, government chief negotiator; John de Jongh, president, St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce; Charles Hensley, president, St. Croix Chamber of Commerce; Richard Doumeng, president, St. Thomas-St. John Hotel and Tourism Association; Kathy Clark, St. Croix Hotel Association; Vernelle DeLegarde, St. Thomas-St. John Federation of Teachers; Tyrone Molyneaux, president, St. Croix Federation of Teachers; Luis "Tito" Morales, president, Central Labor Council; and Erva A. Denham, president, League of Women Voters.
Following these meetings, hearings on individual government department and agency appropriations will be held. Berry said last year there were 26 hearings dealing with the FY 2000 budget.
Berry assured the public that anyone wishing to testify should call Kim Boschulte Ramsingh at (340) 774-0660. Each testifier will be given five minutes to present his or her remarks.
The FY 2001 budget is available in a revised format for faster viewing at www.usvi.org
