The Virgin Islands Department of Public Works is seeking $31.6 million in local funding for fiscal year 2027 to maintain roads, transit and infrastructure while leveraging federal transportation investments.
Appearing Thursday before the Senate Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance, Public Works Commissioner Derek A. Gabriel said the request, recommended by the Office of Management and Budget, is intended to protect what he described as years of modernization across the territory rather than simply fund routine operations.
“This budget is not simply about maintaining operations,” Gabriel said. “It is about protecting the progress we have already made.”
The Office of Management and Budget has recommended $24.3 million from the General Fund, along with $1 million from the Tourism Advertising Revolving Fund, $1.3 million from the Anti-Litter and Beautification Fund and $5 million from the Transportation Trust Fund, bringing total recommended local funding to about $31.6 million.
Gabriel said local dollars are critical because they allow the department to draw down federal transportation funds that, during the administration’s tenure, have supported more than $200 million in roadway improvements.
Gabriel said the department has moved away from “outdated manual processes” by deploying an online permitting system that allows residents to apply for advertising, excavation, driveway and burial permits electronically. He said Public Works also closed a $152 million GARVEE transportation bond, which uses future federal highway funds to finance current transportation projects, and has executed about $39.3 million in territorial spending on roadside maintenance since fiscal year 2019 to avoid returning to a cycle of deferred maintenance.
He told senators those efforts are becoming more expensive as the cost of asphalt, concrete materials and heavy machinery parts “continues to climb” globally while the department absorbs higher fuel costs and a recent increase in the territorial minimum wage. Gabriel called the higher wage “an important investment in our workforce” but said it also “increases the cost of contracted roadside maintenance, beautification, and other essential public services,” warning that “to ignore these wage, workforce and market realities is to risk falling back into a cycle of deferred maintenance.”
Senators, however, spent much of the hearing questioning Public Works on staffing shortages, deteriorating roads and the department’s ability to keep up with maintenance.
Assistant Commissioner Reuben Jennings told lawmakers the department has 198 employees but 33 vacant positions, many of them VITRAN related, and said those vacancies are projected to generate about $1.6 million in personnel savings.
He acknowledged that Public Works does not have a dedicated patching crew on St. Croix, where the small roads team handles “a number of different assignments” rather than focusing solely on pothole repair, including drainage work and roadside clearing, even as Committee Chair Novelle E. Francis Jr. said road conditions are among the most common complaints his office receives from constituents.
Asked what it would take to establish dedicated patching teams, Jennings said Public Works would need at least six employees on each major island, or 12 workers total, with salaries of about $35,000 each.
Gabriel said the department’s responsibilities include not only maintaining roads and other basic infrastructure but also planning and overseeing major construction projects across the territory. He told lawmakers that Public Works serves as “a primary engineering arm of the government of the Virgin Islands,” and is currently managing more than 300 active capital improvement projects, including schools, public buildings, roadway improvements and federally funded disaster recovery work.
Gabriel pointed to projects across all three islands, including improvements to the Melvin H. Evans Highway on St. Croix, roadway and drainage work in downtown Charlotte Amalie, FEMA-funded recovery projects and neighborhood roadwork in areas such as Savan, Anna’s Retreat and Cruz Bay.
Lawmakers also questioned the department about transportation projects, including ferry service and VITRAN. Gabriel said Public Works has invested more than $6 million in 28 new buses and paratransit vehicles and has placed the ‘Spirit of 1733’ ferry into service between Red Hook and Cruz Bay. He said design work continues on a proposed government owned passenger and roll on, roll off ferry, a design that allows vehicles to drive on and off the vessel, between St. Thomas and St. Croix, and he expects the project to go out to bid before the end of the year.
Senators also raised concerns about bus shelters, drainage, speeding, cemetery expansion and the deteriorating pedestrian bridge near the former Addelita Cancryn School on St. Thomas. Gabriel said the department is planning temporary repairs through the government’s procurement system but does not currently have funding to remove or replace the bridge. He told lawmakers that a federal highway inspection team gave Public Works a preliminary estimate of about $600,000 two years ago to demolish and remove the span and found it was not structurally deficient at the time, but said costs have likely increased and that any long‑term solution “will require local funding.”
Gabriel also criticized portions of Act 9100, saying it requires Public Works to assume responsibility for more than 30 private roads without providing the resources to inspect, pave and maintain them. He objected to sections that expand exemptions for roadside signs, including political signs, while directing the department to create a new regulatory framework, warning that the law could reduce revenue, increase enforcement work and “set the groundwork for our roadsides to be littered with unregulated signs.”
He argued that the budget request is about sustaining the progress already made. “Together we have built a foundation that will support the Virgin Islands for decades to come,” Gabriel said. “This fiscal year 2027 budget request before you will allow us to sustain that momentum and complete the work already underway.”
