Share The Pain
We’re going to get right to the point on this proposed 2010 fiscal year budget.
What’s good for the goose should be good for the Governor, the Legislature, and the exempt government employees.
In times of crisis, great statesmen lead by example. That’s a lesson apparently unlearned by those who have created this budget.
To propose that government employees accept the proposed 8 unpaid holidays when no similar proposal has been made for the Executive and Legislative branches, and the plethora of exempt government employees, is simply unacceptable.
And that’s just one of the proposals we’re hoping will be clarified while this budget is debated.
Let’s take a look at some of the highlights of this budget.
To start, it’s based on a projected $854.4 million in revenues which is higher than the $843.5 million in the revised 2009 budget. This is projected at a time when personal income tax collections are expected to drop nearly 15%; corporate taxes have reportedly dropped 67%; and gross receipts taxes are expected to be down 5.5% from 2008 levels. With all these factors in place, including the judicial mess the property tax system is in, how can we expect to generate more revenue in the next fiscal year than in this one? And when you overestimate revenue as a platform premise for the budget, you’re in the hole before you begin.
On the expense side, allocations include (but are not limited to):
• A total of $530.6 million in personnel services (salaries and benefits)
• $150.3 million in “other services and charges” including professional services and travel expenses
• $114.4 million in “miscellaneous” (our favorite)
• $62.9 million for the legislative and judicial branches
• $2.4 million for “capital outlays”
• $22.7 in utility costs
• $15.8 million in supplies
There are many more allocations, but the ones outlined above leave us feeling that there are some obvious ways to cut costs without going into the pockets of the employees who will be affected by the holiday proposal.
Minor adjustments have been proposed in the budgets of government agencies: a 5% reduction in personnel costs through extension of the hiring freeze, the holiday reduction and an attrition initiative; a 5% decrease in the agency budgets of the executive branch; and a 3% decrease in the budgets of all other agencies. Again, the greatest impact in these provisions will be on the government employees through loss of income. The other provisions don’t seem to reflect an appropriately serious response to what is clearly an escalating fiscal crisis.
So here’s where we’d like more detail and maybe then we can make sense of this.
1, What is the breakdown in the personnel cost line? How much of that total is represented by exempt salaries and benefits (including the Executive and Legislative branches)?
2. What are the planned uses for $150 million in the “other services” category? How much of the local work is being done by outside contractors and shouldn’t travel be an area that is sharply restricted in the current economic environment?
3. Please outline for us what $114 million in “miscellaneous” looks like.
We’ve already been told that the budget relies “heavily” on a $200 million short-term financing proposal recently approved by the Senate and signed into law by the governor. Money will be borrowed from various public fund accounts, and government officials have said they anticipate borrowing another $150 million from a bank or financial institution.
And we are encouraged to be optimistic about the potential financial contributions of the Captain Morgan Rum Distillery on St. Croix and future hotel and resort developments – none of which are contributing to the immediate financial quagmire in which we find ourselves.
All this at a time when there are serious questions about the use of public funds, the rising cost of energy and goods, and no real economic turnaround in sight.
Reasonable people expect to sacrifice in lean times but unless the pain is equally administered, it is extremely difficult to justify. We deserve some answers to these questions and a government that understands its responsibility to carry its share of the load.
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The Governor CAN’T be running in 2010.
If we, the voters. in our infinite wisdom, decide to replace deJongh, well, we’ll get what we ask for. As in, one step forward and two steps back. Our entire community system barely works; we have a long way to go.
We’ve begun by doing the hardest part: electing someone who is going to have to make tough decisions for us, positive results which won’t be seeing for years to come. You can’t build a strong house in a hurry. The foundation needs to be strong.
We live in a me-me-me hurry up greedy society. We want everything right now. Plunge into debt to be fat, happy and dumb.
And so we think our governor isn’t doing his job because he isn’t creating economic miracles overnight?
Look what Obama is faced with, after 8 years of a disasterous presidency before him. You think he has a few things to turn around? And already some people are poo-pooing him. Ridiculous. He’s the best thing that’s happened since, jeez, Lincoln. Washington.
Leave deJongh alone. Remember what Kennedy said, “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”. Insert island, community, government whatever for the word country.
You get the drift.
bull foot soup, Are you for real? Instead of proposing the 8 unpaid holidays why not have all of the groonies salaries be cut 10%, stop the unfair hiring practices, stop the government cars after 5:00 p.m. stop the groonies from going on all these conferences, stop the many high social parties, Stop all of the waste in government then we will be able to say that he is trying.
How can you say to us that you are taking away 8 holidays and we continue to see the hiring of persons in varies government offices? Are you really for real.
” Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what
you can do for your country” WE ARE OR LET ME SPEAK FOR MYSELF DOING FOR OUR COUNTRY, BY NOT ALLOWING THIS TO CONTINUE! Maybe you MIGHT be correct in someone else comes in and do the same thing, well, 4 years and out they go isn’t that what we do with the senators? You need to listen to a song my chalkdust in which he’s speaking about some of the wrong things that Alexander Farrelly did and as the song says” ALL THOSE THING THEY SAY I DID, AND THEY VOTE ME BACK IN AGAIN”. It will not work again, we have been taken advantage of too much and it time for the people to fight back! even if it means a new governor every four years. We take senators out every two years sooooooooooooo why not the governor? Some of my good friends say the same thing they are really amazed.
If there had been steps to making this work, I would fully agree with you Bull Foot Soup. But you cannot strive to make it work when you hire thousands of employees and call it a hiring freeze. You cannot make it work when you have hundreds of people on contract dishing out millions of dollars. You cannot make it work when you gave most of the exempt employees salary increases (most of them $10K) and then want to pounce on the small man for money. You cannot make it work when you allow departments to spend millions on things like flat screen tvs and office renovations and frivilous items lets not even mention the numerous luncheons. We no longer live in the dark ages. People are vigilant and they want accountability.
June and The Beat,
Truce. We are all concerned about the same things. I just am of the opinion that our very dysfunctional government will take much much longer to turn around and correct than anyone imagined. I am also of the opinion that deJongh is the right person at the right time. He may not be doing everything right all the time but he (and we) are moving forward. Maybe hard to measure sometimes, but it helps to occasionally look in the rearview mirror.
Bull foot soup, Your last thought in reference to looking in the rearview mirror sometime is exactly what we are doing, that why we are uneasy with what the governor is doing. Again, show us what you will give up.
I do agree we are all concerned about the same thing.
Governor needs not run because he would not win anyways .. he is one mess of a governor .. He does not care for the people at all .Total Loser , i cant believe i voted for this .. it’s a shame to say.
Crucian in West:
If you could design the perfect governor, what would she look like? Or he, if it was a man? (And I don’t mean physically.) What would he/she do differently, why and how? How would you know if he or she was doing a good job?
I dont know what it would look like , but he/she would look out for the interest of both the rich and the poor, and just not the rich . This man passes people in the street and not even a hello … He is the pitts.
Greetings,
Crucians In Focus, I agree with most of your concerns for the 2010 fiscal year budget. I myself am hoping to get more clarity on the budget as it is debated, and I strongly encourage individuals in our community to get a copy of the budget and study it in it’s entirety, and then come to the table with viable suggestions. Meaning we must know in what areas we can truly suggest cutting cost, for example, how much of the $114.4 million for miscellaneous can we cut; how much of the $150.3 million can we truly generate savings by freezing government’s overall spending, which include travels in such a way that only essential spending is approved; how much of the capital outlays; utility cost; and supplies can we trim in order to save.
We must lobby our politicians, mainly our Senators, like we have never lobbied them before. We must ask questions of our politicians and be ready to host peaceful demonstration where and whenever needed to make our voices heard. This crisis has just began and there is no quick fix insight. “We must make hard decisions in cutting back”. Unfortunately, most of our politicans are “now sleepping at the wheel”. They are too silent, moreover, we don’t need them grandstanding… … either.
My questions to the politicians are – does the 8 unpaid holidays currently being proposed the only solution there is in saving our community from greater financial hardship? How much money will we truly saved utilizing “Leave Time”? Have all other options been utilized to the fullest? Meaning, how much of the Stimulus Funds have we received thus far? What impack does the Stimulus Funds have on our economy presently? Did we realize a saving utilizing Stimulus Monies on projects that was already budgeted? Whereby, we can now carry over said savings to the 2010 budget? How effective can we trim government spending to reduce our budget, and my personal “pet pee” – In this buduget are we insuring that money is in the budget for sports in all our schools, so that our children does not have to encounter what they just did in having baseball, football and basketball canceled for lack of funding. I strongly believe that these are some of the questions that must be answered if all of us are in fact going to “SHARE THE PAIN”. The ultimate question then is: What are we willing to contribute, as a people?
Added to this are the million dollor questions, which are: Will our Senators be willing to curve their own governmental spending as well? Will they be willing to stop buying cars and use their own cars and get reimbursed for gas only? Will they be willing to be more creative in finding ways to decrease spending in government, by generating new revenue base businesses in our economy, with emphasis being on “entrepreneurship”. Whereby, all of us as a community can then truly come together as one to weather this storm of great economic crisis. With one goal and one aim, which is the economic survival of all of us.
Realizing that so many students have just recently graduated from high school and college, and hundreds of them will now be out there seeking gainful employment in this community that is currently wheeling from the effects of the global economic hardship we face, with no end in sight. Keepping in mind that 270 works just got laid off from Hovensa in St. Croix, which is now added to those throughout the Territory that has already been laid off, mainly from the hotels, and the stores on main street that are loosing their jobs on a daily basis.
Compounded with jobless individuals from other neighboring islands, who are being encouraged by their government to travel abroad to seek employment else where, such as Anguilla’s government, whose construction boom have just come to an abrupt end. Yesterday, the Prime Minster of Anguilla was on Caribbean News encouraging citizens of Anguilla who were unemployed to leave Anguilla in search of employment, to weather their global economic hardship.
We, as a people, must be mindful that as time gets harder their will be no place for any of us to go. Therefore, we must make the best of it now… …. all of us. All of us must be prepared to “SHARE THIS ECONOMIC PAIN”.
Blessings!
Shirley, we don’t mind sharing the economic pain, but it must be a pain that is felt by ALL of us, the Senators, Governor, and all of the groonies. They can not continue to put the brunt on the poor person. Speaking to the senators is a waste of time, ex: Didn’t we voted to have the senate reduce to 9 and they totally ignored us. I’ wondering why they are afraid on an audit, and you truly want us to go to them requesting or even demanding anything from them. I can guarantee you that they will be changes in the legislature next year.
In terms of persons leaving the islands to seek jobs elsewhere that happens, that is why some of our grandparents came from other islands and abroad, what
about those who can’t afford to leave they have to stay an ride the storm out but not while others live high on the hog.
Shirley, we are just tried of all the fancy words, broken promises and just flat out lies!!!!!
I just hope that Positive still going to run with Foncie. This will be a real change.
Once upon a time, when I was all fired up about learning more about politics and how the system works, I happened upon Politics for Dummies (I love those books!). Ok, so it might focus more on stateside political arrangements but I sure got a good base learning laid down.
In all the Dummies books, right in the front, they have what they call a “Cheat Sheet”, where 90% of the book’s most salient facts are distilled.
In that particular “Cheat Sheet” there is a marvelous overview of what to look for in a candidate, and what to watch out for.
I saw that most of our senators, unfortunately, fell into the broad category of what to watch out for. We voters (not all, but most) repeatedly fall for the same old ‘vote for me’ tricks and the same old people (or their clones) get back in. Chavez uses this method with killer results.
So we always return back to our starting point. The analogy is crabs in a basket. We get going, and then one really gets going, well, you know the story.
June is right, though. Our senators seem to be made of Teflon. We can’t get ‘em.
So what’s the answer? How do we break this vicious circle?
And I’m sure every senator, past and present, went into politics for noble reasons (I hope) but they too come up against the dysfunctional system and they are stymied.
So now what? Keep changing the elected bodies until we finally find one that sticks?
Or change ourselves and how we create our community? Our community will then create the next generation of true leaders.
Much of our focus may be misaligned. Rather than debating who should sacrifice 8 unpaid holidays perhaps we should recognize that the government can immediately collect millions of dollars by requiring that property owners pay their property taxes for the past three years at the legally recognized 1998 level.
Additionally, we should not create new holidays as was being considered by the legislature in May where a bill was proposed to make October 1 “Contract Day” or “Fireburn Day.”
If unpaid holidays are being considered employees could be given the option to be paid for those holidays based on annual, sick, or other available leave they have accrued. While this option (alone) will not entirely help to realize the targeted expense reduction it provides employees with choices and gives them some control in the process. Whether the government’s financial management system can effectively handle such an initiative would need to be examined.
Also let us recognize that within the past several years persons in differing employment classes: classified, unclassified, senators, legislative staff, etc. have received pay increases disproportionately to each other, without consideration for maintaining structured ratios, except, for example, in the case of commissioners and senators.
Therefore to suggest that everyone should sacrifice the same number of unpaid holidays or the same percentage of proposed pay cut (while on the face may appear fair and commendable) this will not promote equity or level the playing field but rather will further penalize those at the lower end of the ratio.
Some very thoughtful ideas, U-Turn.
I wondered why the gov. didn’t sugges taking 3 or 4 holidays instead of 8 – almost a whole pay period.
Don’t know ’bout ayo, but this man couldn’t run no business fo’ me!
This man is completely insane. Any leader that has the nerve to ask his followers to fall on their swords must do so with high moral authority, meaning that he has to convince them beyond a reasonable doubt, that he’s prepared to do the same.
How can he strip away 8 paid holidays from civil servants when its clear that he has no austerity plans in place for himself or anyone one else of rank in the administration? As a leader, you have to live the example you want others to emulate.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for cutting back on government waste – but perhaps we should start with crony contracts, empty-headed appointees, rampant “business” travel and expenses, unnecessary guard shacks, driveways and other private home improvements…
You cant come home drunk, slap your wife, call her a bitch, then expect Junior to become Romeo…
Together we can. Shame on you!
A few weeks ago I came got hold of an old newspaper dated 1961. Well, it seems that nothing ever change in These islands except the license plate. Back then it was Tropical Playground of the Virgin Islands. There were as there still are, power outages. The articles are pretty much the same as in today’s papers. Bad roads, bad public schools, bad health care and thiefing politicians. It seems nothing ever really change and I don’t expect anything to change during the rest of my life time. One thing I must say, the politicians have learned to thief more without getting caught.They learned about off shore banking to hide their gains. However, their punch line remains the same. Vote for me and I will give you this and that. They will sell their souls just for a vote.Remember When a bunch of them traveled half way around the world to look at a garbage dump? Remember when they traveled to look at a power plant? We think big and can’t even get a modern day road system to drive on. Lord Help us.
Cheeses,you are so right!
Share the pain? Gov deJongh, the Legislature and GERS just held a “summit” at Mariott Frenchman’s Reef Hotel. Do you think they want to share the pain? First they have to understand the pain. I wonder how much that summit cost us…including the meals that were served. I don’t know why Government House couldn’t be used.
When I see the raises reversed, then and only then will I begin to feel our “representatives” just might have a clue that we are feeling pain.
This is exactly what I’m talking about why can’t they hold the meeting in the governor’s house or in a hot classroom where they have our children attending classes.
They want to take away 8 holidays while they enjoy themselves. I’m still waiting for them to share the pain and like puzzled say ” reversed the raise”.