Sen. Lorraine Berry, who chairs the Senate Finance committee of the 23rd Legislature, told St. Thomas Rotarians last week that the lack of timely information from the administration about the "the true state of government finances" continues to hinder the legislature in the performance of its duties. Her comments came on the same day that Gov. Charles Turnbull told the Senate the submission of the budget for fiscal year 2001 will be delayed by a month.
Berry said frustration was the order of the day as lawmakers attempted to seek information from the fiscal officers of the executive branch.
"We passed a law mandating that for every two vacancies taking place, only one could be filled yet we can't get the impact on costs."
Berry said there is no information forthcoming on the 5 percent reduction in payroll costs as required in the memorandum of understanding between the territory and the Interior Department.
And when there is information submitted to the Senate, it is incomplete, she said. " Personnel has told us that information on the salaries for each new or vacant position was not available." as a result she said, "there is no way to determine whether payroll costs were going up, down, sideways or whatever."
The only thing left to do , Berry said, is to wait on the 2001 budget to "try and figure out what is happening with personnel costs. That's no way to run a government."
Speaking at Memorial Day ceremonies Monday on St. Thomas, Turnbull said the budget submission was delayed by a month to allow fiscal officers time to analyze the impact of implementing certain conditions as suggested in the
Economic Recovery Task Force Report.
"There are certain elements to factor in to the budget," Turnbull said. He promised full disclosure of the government's finances during the budget review process by the Senate.
"I have nothing to hide, this is a Virgin Islands debt collectively, not a Charles Turnbull debt."
The FY 2001 budget is expected to be submitted to the Senate by June 30t, a month after the deadline mandated by the Revised Organic Act of 1954.
In other remarks to Rotarians, Berry spoke of her intent to determine just how much money was spent on Y2K compliance. Reacting to a Daily News article a week ago where the daily paper blamed the administration for not providing information on how it spent $31 million the Legislature authorized for the Y2K fix, Berry said she has included this item on the June 6 Finance Committee meeting's agenda. It is then she said she hopes to receive a full status update on Y2K compliance.
