The V.I. Bankers Association has, once again, assured the public that the banks are fully prepared for Y2K.
In a release Wednesday, Robert Haines, president of the V.I. Bankers Association, said a Gallup Poll found that nine out of 10 bank customers continue to express confidence in their bank's readiness.
In the shadow of the impending change to the Year 2000, banks have been at the center of concerns about computer glitches. A large part of the concern rests on fears there will be a run on banks by customers wanting access to their cash, fearing computer chaos when the date changes.
Haines, the local vice president for Scotiabank, said the Gallup survey that is being sponsored by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., "shows that as we move toward the new year, consumers are extremely confident that banks are well prepared for Y2K."
In a release earlier this month Haines said, "All of the territory's banks, both large and small, are testing and re-testing their systems to be sure that it will be business as usual during the change to 2000. Next month, next year, and every day, the safest place for your money is in the bank."
The Gallup survey results also indicate that the public remains confident that basic payment systems will work and that people will still have access to their money. Most people polled also said they thought that automatic teller machines would work, and credit card systems and electronic direct deposit systems would function normally.
Dean Adams, a member of the Bankers Association Community Relations Committee, told Radio One News that the bankers have worked hard to assure that Y2K would be a non-event.
Adams also cautioned the public not to take too much cash out of the bank for the long holiday weekend and then spend it all, leaving themselves short for repaying Christmas bills.
The Community Relations Committee has offered these tips for Virgin Islands bank customers.
They are:
1. Stay informed. Read the Y2K information your bank sends you.
2. If you don't already do so, keep your bank statements and records of your transactions, particularly the months just before the date change.
3. If you bank online, make sure your computer is Y2K compliant. Most computer and software manufacturers have extensive Websites on their products' readiness. Keep a backup disk of your records.
4. Avoid scam artists who offer to "hold" your money through the date change. The safest place for your money is in the bank.
5. During the date change, take out only as much cash, as you would need for any long holiday weekend. If you feel you need more, your bank will be ready.

A federal Interior Department audit of the Justice Department's Division of Paternity and Child Support uncovered, among other things, $8.3 million in contracts that were not put out for proper bid.
Interior's inspector general said the person responsible for supervising procurement said the division was comfortable with certain contractors and awarded subsequent contracts to those contractors.
Although the interim director of the program, Cisselon S. Nichols, said she did not concur with the findings, her memo did not say why or offer any explanation for the audit's findings.
The audit also found major flaws in the payroll process. It said the payroll section of the Justice Department regularly sent unsupported payroll documents to the Finance Department.
The audit said personnel in Justice stated that because of deadlines, the payroll was processed as though employees had routinely worked an 80-hour pay period, even when those employees had not submitted time sheets.
The report said the personnel justified the action by saying they said they would make adjustments on the next payroll. But they didn't. The audit said the adjustments weren't made if the employees didn't submit an adjusted time sheet. And Justice personnel didn't seek the adjusted time sheets from employees.
"We concluded that there was little assurance that employees of the Division of Paternity and Child Support worked the number of hours for which they were paid or were charged for the number of hours of leave used," the audit states.
In fact, auditors found evidence that old payroll registers were used to prepare current monthly payrolls summaries "because the current payroll registers were not available."
The audit also revealed the division spent $78,884 for office space that was never used and that it could be liable for $147,108 more to pay off the lease. They also spent $87,468 for construction work on the unused space.
Division officials said they believed they would eventually need additional office space. Nichols, in her response to the audit findings, said, "We must access our office space due to the addition of 20 new employees."
Nichols was not available for further comment Wednesday afternoon.

A federal Interior Department audit on the territory's Division of Paternity and Child Support uncovered, among other things, $8.3 million in contracts that were not put out for proper bid.
Interior's inspector general said the person responsible for supervising procurement said the division was comfortable with certain contractors and awarded subsequent contracts to those contractors.
Though the interim director of the program, Cisselon S. Nichols, said she did not concur with the findings, her memo did not say why or offer any explanation for the audit's findings.
The audit also found major flaws in the payroll process. It said the payroll section of the V.I. Justice Department regularly sent unsupported payroll documents to the Finance Department.
The audit said personnel in Justice stated that because of deadlines, the payroll was processed as though employees had routinely worked an 80-hour shift, even when those employees had not submitted time sheets.
The report said the personnel justified the action because they said they would make adjustments on the next payroll. But they didn't. The audit said the adjustments weren't made if the employees didn't submit an adjusted time sheet. And Justice personnel didn't seek the adjusted time sheets from employees.
"We concluded that there was little assurance that employees of the Division of Paternity and Child Support worked the number of hours for which they were paid or were charged for the number of hours of leave used," the audit states.
In fact auditors found evidence that old payroll registers were used to prepare current monthly payrolls summaries "because the current payroll registers were not available."
The audit also revealed the division spent $78,884 for office space that was never used and could be liable for $147,108 more to pay off the lease. They also spent $87,468 for construction work on the unused space.
Division officials said they believed they would eventually need additional office space. In her response Nichols said, "We must access our office space due to the addition of 20 new employees."
Nichols was not available for further comment Wednesday afternoon.

If the answers of the 100 or so people who responded to the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency's millennium survey are any indication, the territory is ill-prepared for Y2K.
VITEMA distributed the survey last week through the Daily News. It consisted of four multiple choice questions.
One asked if the territory is sufficiently prepared for Y2K problems. Another asked: "What do you believe will happen in 2000?" The possible answers to this: 1) the world will come to an end; 2) Christ's return; 3) World War III; 4) all of the above and 5) none of the above. Fortunately, number five was the big winner on that one.
Also asked was whether the government has done enough to prevent a territory-wide computer shutdown, and impressions about all the millennium hype. Responses to both were negative.
The agency got called everything from a "dummy," to publishing a "sophmorial" (sic) survey, and the "whole thing being a waste of time." However, Jevon Patrick, chief planner for VITEMA, took it in good humor. He said it's unfortunate people think the territory is not prepared, as VITEMA has done everything in its power to do just that.
The agency coordinates all local and federal offices in any emergency.
One innovative person, obviously a Crucian, in answer to what 2000 will bring, said "St. Croix's potholes won't be fixed, the ballpark won't be repaired and the government will take all the car insurance money."
Another survey was all crossed out with the message that "the federal government will take over the Virgin Islands, and about time!"
Patrick said he didn't feel most people took it seriously – the situation, as well as the survey.
"They don't really see the government shutting down or having major problems as a possibility," he said.
About the survey, he said he thought that most people figured, "well, I don't have to pay postage, so why not."

Thank you for your efforts on the St. Croix Source. I check this and the St. Thomas site daily for up to date and current news and information about the V.I.
As a native of St. Croix, I continue to be interested in what happens in the V.I. I would like to contact some of the legislators with my suggestions and comments. Can you help me in that area? Specifically, I am interested in communicating with Sen. Bert Bryan and Sen. Chucky Hansen.
Once again thank you for your work on the website. It keeps those of us on the continent current with news from home.

Raquel Short

The Office of Special Education Services announced Wednesday that an agreement has been reached to resume school bus transportation for students on St. Croix.
Education officials reminded parents of special education students that to use the service students must have a current bus pass. To have a pass issued, parents should take their children to see Ms. Francella Tonge at the Public Works Office at Anna’s Hope on Monday, Jan. 3 through Jan. 5 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m.
For more information contact Ms. Tonge at 773-1290 ext. 2238 or Ms. Nicole Roebuck at 774-4399.

This weekend's "Cinema Sunday" offering at the Reichhold Center for the Arts is The Red Violin, which was rescheduled from Nov. 28. It's an ambitious adventure that offers a little something for every genre of film buff beyond those addicted to what today is understatedly labeled "action."
The 1998 Canadian production (Le Violon rouge) encompasses three centuries of international history and politics, war, romance, sex, silliness, mysticism, intrigue, deceit and the requisite marvelous musical score.
Roger Ebert describes the motion picture as "the story of a violin (‘the single most perfect acoustical machine I've even seen,' says a restorer) from its maker in 17th Century Italy to an auction room in modern Montreal. The violin passes from the rich to the poor, from Italy to Poland to England to China to Canada. It is shot, buried, almost burned and stolen more than once."
The story unfolds in flashbacks after the film opens at an auction in modern-day Montreal where the "red violin," received by the auction house in a shipment of miscellaneous goods from China, is about to go on the block. The violin itself is the star of this movie, in its passionate performances of music ranging from Baroque to modern. But fave movie bad-guy Samuel L. Jackson's character, Charles Morritz, an unscrupulous New York expert hired by the auction house to restore the instrument, is the ultimate pivotal figure.
The film is "heedlessly ambitious," in Ebert's view, with "the kind of sweep and vision that we identify with elegant features from decades ago — films that followed a story thread from one character to another, such as Tales of Manhattan, La Ronde, The Yellow Rolls Royce, and, in this decade, The Slacker.
Those less impressed might see it more along the lines of Circle of Love, a '60s pop color caricature of the high-drama '50s black and white La Ronde.
New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden calls it an "extravagant time-traveling costume drama tracing the 300-year life of a priceless hand-crafted violin." He summarizes the sequences: "Over the course of three centuries, the violin makes its way from 17th Century Italy (Cremona) to 18th Century Austria (Vienna) to a tribe of mountain-dwelling gypsies to 19th Century England (Oxford) to Communist China (Shanghai) and finally to contemporary Canada (Montreal)." Each vignette, he says, is "a gaudy historical tableau illustrating a particular society's relationship to European classical music."
To give a few more clues: We follow the violin from its maker (with a tarot card reader predicting its course) to an order of monks to an orphan child prodigy to a band of gypsies to a famous virtuoso violinist to a Chinese pawnshop at the time of the Cultural Revolution to the auction house in Montreal.
While Holder critiques the plot development as cliches, he hails John Corigliano's "ravishing score" that features Joshua Bell on violin with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen.
The Reichhold Center itself in publicity material summaries the film as "a stirring and sumptuous epic that spans five countries, four languages and more than 300 years or history and cultural change."
The Red Violin won the 1999 Genie and Jutra Awards for best motion picture and the 1998 Tokyo International Film Festival Award for best artistic contribution.
Directed by François Gerard, the picture was filmed largely in English, with some subtitles. Running time is 130 minutes. It's unrated. Movie time at the Reichhold Center is 7:30 p.m. Gates open at 7. Admission is $5. To learn more, call 693-1559.

The V.I. Police Department will locate officers at various locations on the territory’s three islands on New Year’s Eve and Day to "ensure safety and the continuity of service" to residents said Police Commissioner Franz Christian.
The commissioner said police vehicles will pre-position at the following areas: On St. Croix at the La Vallee School and the East End Fire Station. On St. Thomas at the Bordeaux convinient store, Four Corners, Red Hook Dock and the Nadir intersection in Bovoni. On St. John, units will be at Coral Bay near the Sputnik Ball Park.
Christian said that police vehicles on all three islands will engage their dome lights at just after midnight Saturday morning "to ensure high visibility to the public."
"911 in both districts are operational, however, alternate numbers to all precincts can be utilized. Full manpower resources will be used to facilitate this plan," Christian said. "While the department does not anticipate any major problems, this contingency plan simply reassures the continuity of police service to the community."

On the first day of the year 2000, while many Virgin Islanders are sleeping off the after- effects of ringing in the New Year, bird watchers on St. Croix and St. John will be out before the crack of dawn taking part in the 100th anniversary Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count.
Nearly 50,000 people in more than 1,800 locations are expected to take part in this year's bird count, traditionally conducted during a 14-day period at the end of December.
The annual bird count "started in the United States and spread across the country," Dr. Will Henderson, a St. John resident, explained. Today it involves groups in all 50 states plus "every Canadian province, parts of Central and South America, Bermuda, the West Indies and some of the Pacific islands,"
Audubon Society members on St. John have conducted the annual census of their feathered friends for the last 13 years on Christmas Day. This year, Henderson said, the count is being held a week later, on New Year's Day, to accommodate birds of a different feather — "the snowbirds." The term is used for people who regularly come to the islands in the wintertime, many staying in vacation homes or time-shares. Henderson said about half of the St. John Audubon Society members are snowbirds.
The birders — all volunteers — will fan out into the bush around the island to begin their count in the pre-dawn hours, armed with binoculars and hot beverages in vacuum bottles, and continue throughout the day. Invariably, Henderson said, someone will get a treat in the sighting of a rare species, although, he admitted this has never happened to him.
"We had a very rare one come by here on St. John last fall and has been seen several times since then," he said, "and that's the red-legged honey creeper." He described the species as "a bright blue bird with a bright blue-turquoise crown and wild red legs." The nearest place the bird is known to inhabit is Trinidad, he added.
Dennis McKinney, environmental director of the St. Croix Environmental Association, noted that hurricanes, with their destruction of natural environments, can have the effect of sending migratory birds to locations they have not previously inhabited.
On St. Croix, he said, "One observer recently saw a Chaffinch, a North African species, and he never saw it again. All you can do is speculate. When you have weather like we have, you never know what's going to turn up. After Hurricane Marilyn we had a population of flamingoes for a couple of months."
This year, for the first time since 1988 — the Christmas before Hurricane Hugo — a bird count will also be taken on St. Croix, coordinated by SEA. McKinney figures that "we may get an oddball or two that can be attributed to Lenny."
Before 1989, "There had been counts annually for as far back as I can recall on St. Croix – – at least 20 years, maybe more," McKinney said. The association had been reluctant to take on responsibility for reviving the count, he said, because this is also the time of year of its annual fund-raiser auction. Still, he said, "the motivation has always been there, because it's something that needs to get done. Data on Central America and the Caribbean are important so that scientists up north know where the birds from there go."
This year, he said, the count is taking place largely because SEA volunteer and Realtor Sheelagh Fromer agreed to take charge of organizing it. She has divided St. Croix into seven zones plus Buck Island and Green Cay (with the National Park Service leading the count at those two sites).
McKinney, a SEA staff member for the last two and a half year, figures the bird population may have changed significantly in number, if not in species variety, since the hurricane of a decade ago devastated St. Croix.
Although "the main idea is to send records up to the Audubon headquarters in New York where they crunch the numbers," Henderson said, the data collected are put to local use as well. He said the annual St. John bird count has helped local environmentalists gain a better understanding of how weather and other changes affects the number and types of birds, many of them making their seasonal migration.
"About one third of the birds that have been seen on our island are permanent residents," he said. The rest, he said, "come here to nest or come here to winter. Of course, some of them come here to summer."
Although the Audubon Society is more than 100 years old, a publication from the organization credits Frank Chapman for organizing the first bird count in December 1900. "He implored them to begin a new holiday tradition of counting birds, rather than shooting them, as had been tradition," the publication states.

No one has asked me as yet what I want for the new millennium, but I secretly made a wish list anyway. After all, it's the season to part with the old and make new plans, wish lists and to dream about what we would like to see in the new millennium.
Well, here is my merry wish list of items for the Virgin Islands. It is my profound wish that the new millennium bestowed these modest gifts upon all our residents.
BUSINESS GROWTH AND PROSPERITY
An exciting era of unprecedented business growth with abundant opportunities for our graduates and skilled in the private sector.
Smart economic development policies that attract technology companies and long-term investments.
A truly diversified economy that embraces the new technologies.
Thriving aquaculture and hydroponics industries.
Employers that inspire productivity, satisfaction and happiness in the workplace.
That every resident enjoys the benefits of economic prosperity.
EDUCATION ADVANCEMENT AND REFORM
An era where our teachers and educators are valued, respected, encouraged and paid well to pursue their vocations with honor, dignity, and without outside instigation.
An era of ample resources to modernize our schools and to convert them into innovative centers of learning and human development and advancement.
Schools with Internet access and online classes for every student.
A St. Croix Educational Complex renamed and reinvented as the School of Commerce and Applied Technology with ample resources and the active participation of private industry – a pleasant place where students of all ages explore careers and gain confidence and tremendous pride in themselves.
Absence of illiteracy and an interconnected community of learners with a computer in every home.
That the University of the Virgin Islands expands and creates a model Business and Technological Institute that will benefit our present and future workforce.
A refreshing approach to education that helps our students to achieve the highest scores on national tests and qualify for the finest universities of the nation.
REINVENTED GOVERNMENT
A high-performance government driven by technology, commitment, ethics, and the highest ideals of democratic governance.
A lean government staffed with our finest, brightest and most dedicated public servants.
A vibrant and intelligent government that is business-friendly and customer driven.
A government of integrated and interconnected agencies that are efficient and resourceful.
A government lead by enlightened leaders and skilled administrators that make sound decisions based on knowledge.
A disciplined and fiscally solvent government.
RELIABLE AND MODERN INFRASTRUCTURE
World-class telecommunications, reliable electrical systems, paved roads, clean water systems, and modern conveniences.
A magnificent super-port adjacent to an expanded Henry E. Rohlsen International Airport directly linking us to the world's major metropolitan centers.
An upgraded and expanded St. Thomas harbor & waterfront.
Beautifully refurbished and rebuilt towns thriving with new life and economic activity.
A well-prepared & disaster proof community.
QUALITY AND AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE
Modern hospitals and health care facilities with the best of staffing, medicine and hi-tech equipment.
Healthier and longer life spans.
PRECIOUS ENVIRONMENT
Flowers, palm trees and beautiful landscaping everywhere.
Clean streets and beaches, and the absence of sewage, garbage and pollution in our shores and land.
An intelligent balance of nature and economic growth and development.
Extensive use of recycling technologies and products.
IMPROVED NEIGHBORHOODS AND HOUSING COMMUNITIES
Rebuilt and landscaped housing communities where there is safety and pride of living and ownership.
Pleasant and safe playgrounds for children and youth.
HAPPY, PEACEFUL AND CARING COMMUNITY
A friendly, safe and secure community – ideal to live and run a business.
Absence of crime, drugs, and all forms of violence, bigotry and degradation.
Mutual cooperation and respect for individual rights and differences.
Pleasant, honest and constructive dialogue on the airwaves.
GENUINE FUTURISTS, VISIONARIES AND STRATEGIC PLANNERS TO PLOT OUR FUTURE
People who can plan and create a bright future and not mere reenactments of a dead and painful past.
RENEWED FAITH AND RECONNECTION WITH OUR MAKER AND SPIRITUALITY
With God, there is always a bright and glorious future.
Carmelo Rivera, a business consultant, lives on St. Croix.