At 3 p.m. Friday, after weeks of requests by the public, the press and other senators, Senate President Almando "Rocky" Liburd released information on how the 24th Legislature is spending the taxpayers' money. But only some of the information.
Requested of Liburd last week was each senator's individual allotment and staff salaries, central staff salaries, committee budgets and an accounting of expenses incurred on January's trip to Washington, D.C., by majority bloc lawmakers.
Liburd released each senator's staff salaries and a breakdown of central staff salaries for the 24th Legislature, but not senators' entire allotments. Nor are there any figures on the Washington trip. It was not possible to get a central staff salary breakdown for the 23rd Legislature for comparison.
Liburd said he thought all that was requested was the senators' staff salaries, not the total allotments. He said he would provide those Monday, along with a breakdown of the Washington expenses, which he said were between $2,600 and $3,000 each.
Liburd confirmed the committee budgets of the two minority senators at $15,000 each, and the majority senators' committee budgets at $30,000 each. Sen. Douglas Canton chairs the Committee on Health and Hospitals and Sen. Vargrave Richards chairs the Committee on Youth and Human Services; both are minority bloc members.
Sens. Emmett Hansen II and Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg wrote to Liburd last week requesting information on budgetary details, which are a matter of public record and, according to the two senators, should have been released by now. They warned Liburd he could be sued for withholding public records.
The Source had requested the information early this month with no response until last Thursday, when Liburd said the information would be forthcoming this week. Repeated phone calls to Liburd's office during the week bore no fruit until Friday afternoon.
The Senate president again said, "Remember, I'm working with a major budget cut of $1 million." Last week he cited the cut as well as unanticipated expenses as the reasons for the delay in releasing the information.
The salaries for senatorial staffing:
Sen. Almando "Rocky" Liburd
10 employees $ 342,000
Sen. Adelbert Bryan
7 employees $256,728
Sen. Norman Jn Baptiste
8 employees $232,500
Sen. Celestino White Sr.
5 employees $169,000
Sen. Carlton Dowe
8 employees $240,000
Sen. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen
6 employees $164,000
Sen. Donald "Ducks" Cole
5 employees $167,000
Sen. Norma Pickard-Samuel
5 employees $169,000
Sen. Douglas Canton Jr.
3 employees $87,000
Sen. Roosevelt David
5 employees $94,932
Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg
3 employees $85,000
Sen. David Jones
3 employees $90,000
Sen. Vargrave Richards
3 employees $77,500
Sen. Lorraine Berry
3 employees $60,000
Central Staff Appointments:
St. Thomas 100 employees, $2,945,848
St. Croix 59 employees, $1,655,000.
