A V.I. Public Services Commission appointee said Thursday that his final report on the rates for ferries connecting St. Thomas and St. John will be completed in the next few weeks, and a PSC hearing on the matter is slated for June 9.
The PSC tapped consultant Jed JohnHope to investigate ferry rates in late 2024, and he presented his findings to commissioners during an occasionally tense meeting earlier this week. On Tuesday, JohnHope recommended against raising ferry rates, and commissioners later adopted several of his recommendations. Those included decoupling the Charlotte Amalie to St. John ferry route — which accounts for only 3 percent of passenger traffic — from rate calculations, requiring the use of government-owned boats, and eliminating compensation for government-owned assets.
“We have vessels that have been out of the territory for up to 10 years that are still included in the rate base,” he said Thursday. “We have vessels that are retired. And we also have — most notably — government-funded assets that the ferry companies were earning a financial return on.”
JohnHope has also called for an independent ticketing system, arguing that the current system — operated by the ferry companies — makes it impossible to verify ridership and revenue data, and he reiterated his recommendation for audits of the ferry companies’ fuel consumption, payroll and staffing.
Prior to outlining his recommendations, JohnHope responded publicly to allegations from attorney Maria Tankenson Hodge, who on Tuesday accused the hearing examiner of billing her clients for thousands in dubious billable hours and travel costs. JohnHope described Hodge’s allegations as being “riddled with lies, inaccuracies and mischaracterizations” before addressing each of the claims.
“The analysis in this proceeding identified approximately $7 million in unwarranted earnings under the existing fare framework — compared with the approximately $150,000 in professional fees incurred thus far,” he said. “This represents a return of investment of more than 3,400 percent.”
JohnHope said the allegation that he billed $80,000 for eight days of work was similarly false.
“It is a salacious and misleading statement that I demand attorney Hodge formally retract,” he said. “False statements made before the PSC carry consequences, and I’m currently reviewing my options with legal counsel regarding those representations.”
Hodge called JohnHope’s statements a “further demonstration of bias on the part of the hearing examiner” and said the ferry companies would wait until the final report is released to state their objections. Speaking to the Source afterward, JohnHope said that would likely drag the proceedings out even longer.
“They’ve been stalling on this for the better part of a year. This thing was supposed to be done in September, and it’s clear — once you peek behind the curtains — why they don’t want to talk about this,” he said. “They’ve been making out quite well, but the crazy thing to me is, they have the audacity to ask for a rate increase in the middle of all of this. You’re getting compensated for boats that have been out of the territory for 10 years, and you want a rate increase?”
Despite the heated language Tuesday and Thursday, JohnHope stressed that the dispute wasn’t a personal one.
“The story isn’t that some guy stayed at an $800 hotel — which I can justify,” he said. “The story is, ‘wow, these guys have taken $7 million in… unwarranted earnings from this community. Let’s talk about that.”
