The V.I. Public Services Commission would serve its mission better if its members were salaried professionals instead of citizen volunteers, Senate Majority Leader Donald Cole said during the PSC’s budget hearing Wednesday. Cole, a former PSC chairman himself, was responding to testimony from PSC Executive Director Keithley Joseph that "only two commission members’ terms have not expired."
Cole said when he met with members of state regulatory boards at professional conferences, they would ask how the territory persuaded anyone to sit on the commission without paying them. He asserted the U.S. Virgin Islands’ PSC is one of a very few, if not the only, amateur agency regulating utilities.
People are also hesitant to serve on the PSC because "they don’t want to be blamed for the high price of energy in the territory," when they have to allow the fuel surcharge on customers’ bills to rise, to allow WAPA to continue purchasing fuel.
Joseph presented the commission’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget request of $1.6 million, noting it is a nominal increase of $57,000 over the FY13 appropriation.
Personnel costs consume $1.1 million of that budget, with $786,000 for wages and salaries, and $295,000 for employer contributions to Medicare, Social Security, pension and health benefits. Rent comes to $125,000; professional services $99,000; utilities $63,000; and office supplies $40,000, according to information submitted along with Joseph’s testimony. Expected travel expenses are down, from $89,000 in FY2013 to $64,000 for FY 2014.
Cole pointed out the PSC’s $1.6 million operating budget comes entirely from its regulated utilities in the form of regular, annual revenue-based assessments collected in the PSC Revolving Fund, not from the General Fund. Of that total, just under a million dollars ($960,000) is from other semi-autonomous government entities, with $756,000 or 46 percent of the total from WAPA, and $204,000 or 13 percent from the V.I. Waste Management Authority.
Assessments on Vitelco account for $450,000 or 27.8 percent; the two Innovative cable television companies account for another $170,000 or 10.5 percent; and smaller assessments on the ferry companies round out the total.
Docket specific assessments for 2012 charged to the utilities for rate studies and other actions include $302,000 assessed to WAPA; $141,000 to Vitelco; $23,000 to the V.I. Waste Management Authority; $16,000 to Terracom; $5,000 to Choice Communication; $4,000 to Nexus Communication; $2,000 to V.I. Boomerang Wireless; and $2,000 to Pungitore Energy Development.
Bureau of Motor Vehicles Director Jerris Browne also presented his department’s FY14 General Fund budget request of $1.6 million – a decrease of $86,000 or 5 percent from FY13.
The department is requesting $1 million from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles Fund, consisting of the fees the BMV collects and $644,000 from the sale of personalized license plates – up $107,000 or 20 percent from FY 2013.
Taken together, the BMV projects a total FY14 budget of $3.3 million. Wages and salaries comprise $1.48 million of the total; employer contributions to Medicare, Social Security, health insurance and pension plans accounts for another $722,000; and $175,000 is set aside for utilities. Another $393,000 is set aside for supplies, with $323,000 of that total specifically for supplies for personalized license plates.
As last year, Browne said his department’s primary goal for the following year would be to finish implementing the Real ID ACT of 2005, which standardizes the issuing process for driver’s licenses across the country and increases security measures.
The Department of Homeland Security had set a Jan. 13, 2013, deadline to meet all requirements of the Real ID Act, but "the majority of the driver’s license issuing entities, including the U.S. Virgin Islands, did not meet this deadline," and Homeland Security issued new timelines. The BMV now projects full compliance by the end of February 2014.
No votes were taken during the information gathering hearing.
