At a hearing before the Committee on Finance for the Office of Management and Budget, legislators questioned current spending habits of government officials at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is negatively impacting government finances.
According to OMB Director Jenifer O'Neal, fiscal year 2021 is anticipated to be a ‘recovery year’. Ms. O’Neal provided testimony Wednesday with members of her team to provide justification for $25.9 million for funding the agency.
But while OMB spoke of plans for the upcoming fiscal year, senators expressed concern with the administration even as the U.S. Virgin Islands continues to struggle financially with only two days cash on hand as of Monday, according to Governor Albert Bryan.
In particular, Senator Kenneth Gittens spoke about the continued excessive use of government resources, despite COVID-19, in the form of taking government-issued vehicles to beaches, for example, and government executives traveling between islands with other employees ‘tagging behind’. He strongly encouraged the director to look into austerity measures.
“Something should have been in place knowing that we have austerity measures,” Senator Kurt Vialet said relative to the excessive use of government-owned vehicles used by employees during the pandemic. Mr. Vialet said the policy for austerity measures falls under the executive branch.
On other matters, Ms. O'Neal said an upgrade to OMB’s technology is considered necessary. Senator Athneil Thomas questioned whether there was a plan to audit the entire government to update outdated equipment used for government processes. Ms. O’Neal said the Bureau of Information Technology (BIT) had contracted a company to perform assessments of different agencies.
“We always have to hire a company to assist with everything,” said Mr. Vialet in response to BIT outsourcing what he said it should have competent employees to do. He plans to do further investigation into this company and how much they are being paid. In BIT’s defense, Ms. O’Neal said the government arm only has about 5 employees on staff.
In the budget proposal, $11.8 million is allocated to personnel and fringe benefit costs to fund 39 full-time equivalent positions at OMB. Ms. O'Neal considers her staff to be "lean" with a few critical vacancies that need to be filled to include IT staff.
OMB said it continues to move forward on a path toward performance-based budgeting. “I believe that is the key for us to really hold these agencies accountable,” said Senator Novelle Francis, conveying his full support of that direction and eager anticipation of its full implementation.
In addition, Kirk Callwood, Commissioner of the Department of Finance, gave testimony yesterday toward the FY2021 budget as it relates to Department of Finance and the Public Finance Authority.
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