June 30, 2008 — New property-tax bills will be sent out by July 31, Raymond Williams, chief of staff for the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, told the Senate Finance Committee on Monday during budget hearings in Frederiksted.
They will be the first bills under a recently completed property revaluation, and the first bills under a new set of property-tax rates and exemptions. (See "V.I. Government Finally Gets OK to Issue Old Property-Tax Bills.")
The Office of the Lieutenant Governor oversees eight separate subdivisions, five of which generate revenue for the government:
— Office of the Tax Assessor, assessing land values and maintaining cadastral land maps;
— Banking and Insurance;
— Recorder of Deeds;
–Trademarks and Corporations; and
— V.I. Passport Acceptance Facility.
These offices are projected to generate roughly $102.7 million for the V.I. Government this year, according to the figures provided by Williams. This is a moderate increase over last year's $96.3 million. Real-property taxes are expected to bring in more than half the total at $59.1 million. The Recorder of Deeds is projected to the next largest contributor at $19 million in stamp-tax revenues gathered whenever real property is sold. However, property sales have been soft in recent months and that projection is probably too high, according to Delbert Hewitt, chief of operations for the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. (See "Slowdown in Revenue Attributed to Low Property Sales.")
Banking and Insurance is expected to generate $17.5 million and the remaining bureaus to bring in sums of between $500,000 and $3.5 million each.
The office is defending a 2009 General Fund budget of $8.6 million. This is an increase of $2 million from last year. The increase is largely due to moving responsibility for property-tax collection out of the Department of Finance and into the Office of the Lieutenant Governor in the Division of Real Property Tax, where it now operates alongside the Office of the Tax Assessor, said Paulette Ible, the office's director of business and finance. The Legislature passed a bill making the change in December 2007.
Some 24 employees from Finance came on board with the move, Ible said.
Salaries and benefits account for 92 percent of the office's General Fund budget.
No votes were taken at the committee hearing.
Present were Sens. Carlton "Ital" Dowe, Juan Figueroa-Serville, Neville James, Terrence "Positive" Nelson, Ronald Russell and James Weber III. Sen. Liston Davis was absent and excused.
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