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Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Mapp Announces Additional Cabinet Nominees and Agency Heads

Gov. Kenneth Mapp announced Wednesday the key members of his financial team, saying they would help the new administration avert a “total government collapse.”

Speaking at a press conference on St. Thomas, Mapp said pulling in experienced money managers and “change agents” is a top priority, adding he and Lt. Gov. Osbert Potter are making progress in putting the rest of their cabinet together.

“This government is having significant financial challenges,” Mapp said. “We believe that during the state of the territory, we will be discussing the financial condition or, just to give you a heads up, maybe the lack of a financial condition, of the Virgin Islands.”

“Our challenges in this area are going to be significant and, in order to bring about some semblance of reality … we have been reaching to the strongest people with the experience and background to help us in this task,” Mapp said.

Tapped to lead the Department of Finance is Valdamier Collens, currently the chief financial officer at the V.I. Port Authority and who previously helped lead the government’s conversion to its new Enterprise Resource Planning system.

Mapp described Collens as an experienced money manager with more than 20 years of experience in providing “sustainable changes” and transforming “financial reporting and key businesses processes” within Finance and VIPA.

Mapp explained that bringing some of the new nominees on board meant offering them higher salaries, so “certain changes to the government’s salary structure” would be forthcoming if they are confirmed.

“They are not enormous changes, but I wanted to let you know that changing the salary of commissioners can affect a change in the salaries of members of the Legislature,” the governor added.

“Let me make it clear now: we will take no action that will affect a change in the salaries of the members of the Legislature. How we’re going to affect the changes that we’re going to be implementing is to make other cuts and reductions in the management staff in those departments.”

Mapp said management teams in many agencies have become inflated, while the rest of the department is understaffed. Finance for example, has three employees handling the payroll for the entire government, which includes providing 10 percent of the government’s workforce with paper checks that Mapp said cost a significant amount to issue and deliver.

No specific salary numbers were given Wednesday and Mapp directed all questions to his communications team.

Picked to lead the Office of Management and Budget was Nellon Bowry, former chief financial officer at the V.I. Water and Power Authority that Mapp said would come in for a year “to help avert the collapse” before returning to retirement. Before Collins was hired at VIPA, Bowry also filled in as the agency’s interim CFO. Bowry also served as Management and Budget director under the Roy L. Schneider/Mapp administration.

The nominee for Human Services commissioner is Vivian I. Ebbesen-Fludd, who Mapp said would be tasked with doing everything from managing the Medicaid program to vastly changing the “attitude” of the department’s employees to its customers.

“Human Services really takes care of those persons in the community that need help,” the governor said. “And there are folks that have served in this government for 30 or 40 years that do not have access to their retirement benefits because the government of the Virgin Islands hasn’t paid its contributions into the system.”

“We have retirees that have been waiting more than a year to access their benefits with no help.”

To help solve the problem, Mapp said the administration would be compiling a report about how much is owed to each retiree and putting together a strategy to help pay down on the obligations.

Mapp also laid out his strategy for revamping the Department of Agriculture, which he has picked Carlos Robles to lead. Lowering the cost of living for residents means having and helping people grow their own food, and Mapp said Robles, a Corporate Extension Service professor at the University of the Virgin Islands and local agriculture expert, is the man to make that happen.

Agriculture will “morph” into a department for service and advocacy, a co-op program with local farmers will be established so that fresh fruits and vegetables can be provided to the territory’s schools. and a mandate that unused land leased from the department be returned will be issued, the governor added.

“Either you’re going to farm or give us back our property because we need it,” Mapp said. “And we’re talking about hundreds upon hundreds of acres of land that people are holding on to.”

Also named Tuesday were:
– Veterans Affairs director: Sgt. Patrick “Souljah” Farrell (Mapp said he has chosen a young director to advance the mission of the agency);
– V.I. Fire Services director: Eugene Farrell (Mapp said Farrell has been tasked with building two new firehouses, one on St. John and one on St. Croix);
– V.I. Energy Office director: Elmo Roebuck Jr.;
– Acting Commissioner of Health: Dwayne Howell

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