Pay Me Now Or Pay Me Later
Is more borrowing really the answer? How would you cut government costs?
You don’t need an economics degree to know that the current pattern of borrow and spend is a path to financial destruction for the Virgin Islands.
The Territory started the fiscal year with a $280 million deficit, and it is predicted that the FY 2010 will duplicate that shortfall. That’s a $600 million dollar hole.
The Governor has begun his public campaign to seek approval to borrow another $100 or so million from the Legislature – this in addition to the $250 million borrowed last year – that is earmarked to meet day-to-day operating expenses.
And the only alternative to this approach, we are told, is to lay off government employees and cut government services.
If you ran your household finances this way, you’d be starving, bankrupt and living on the street – and we may be if this pattern continues.
The Governor has been quoted as saying that the initial $250 million already borrowed will last until the summer, and that he is preparing a bond package for the next $100 million to submit to Senate President Louis Hill shortly.
Slow down Governor. We’ve got some other suggestions.
- Stop hiring people! You’ll never get out of this hole if you keep adding dollars to the same payroll you’re borrowing to cover. What happened to the hiring freeze? Are these additions we’re seeing essential personnel? How many “assistants” and “special project coordinators” do these agencies need when the financial situation is so dire?
- Call for an accounting to the Legislature of how the “lump sum” budgets have been spent in the first half of the fiscal year. Press department heads to justify questionable expenses. Don’t accept vague responses or promises to bring the documentation later – the problem is immediate.
- Much of the shortfall is attributed to faltering revenues, and many of those revenues are missing because of the ongoing dispute around property taxes going uncollected. We are all aware of the ongoing legal controversy on the tax question but we must repeat a question we have asked before – Why not collect the taxes we can, at the old rate, until the rest of the controversy is settled?
- On Wednesday, the Legislature heard testimony from numerous government agencies that revealed that millions of dollars in appropriated funds are sitting idle, waiting to be used for projects that have been on the books, in some cases, for years. Take a hard look to determine whether some of those projects are relevant anymore – we are sure there are some that are not – and, dare we say it, reprogram those funds toward operational needs.
The point is this – there are alternatives to continuing to borrow to get out of this mess. It is unrealistic to believe there will be any end to the deficits if some hard decisions aren’t made, and made quickly. We haven’t even begun to address the larger issues – the Government Employees Retirement Fund, the retroactive pay, the list goes on.
But you’ve got to start somewhere, and we’ve got to quit borrowing.
We’ve started the list. Readers, what do you suggest?
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I just went over Verdel Peterson letter on One Paper , I must say something is wrong with this girl, and the people that she is speaking for, if they really think that we are so gullible that we are going to buy into what they are saying to us. HER WRITING IS JUST AS CRAZY AS HER TIRADES ON THE RADIO. I would like to tell her and the people that she represents is that deJongh and his day time wife need to go to jail just for the audacity of thinking that we would buy that it was decent or reasonable to build a driveway and parking at a cost of as she said for $155,160.00 for a home that they paid $250.000.00, with the people of the Virgin Islands money, I must tell you I personally went up to see this house,and if that is what they paid please go back to the company for the rest of the people money or was cash given back to them? this is what the IG should be looking into, we are all talking about all the money that was paid to the company that did the work, maybe we should be asking is they paid back cash to them
Oh, this is getting good. The RIP OFF presented to us by Dowe and Hill will come to a fruitful end for the PEOPLE, not for the DeJonghs.
Hello? Any Feds reading this blog? WE the people want an end to this corruption, please help.
Poor Verdel she not only fighting a lost case for the gang of robbers in Government House but she claims they not paying her.The article is so full of bunk and reflects badly on the institution of education she gets paid for showing up to.
Too bad none of her critics will get an article published by the legitimate media. This is the only place that smut thrives in black & white. To hear the utterance of the morons, tune in to 1620 am. Great entertainment! Empty barrels make the most noise.
We will be making noise all the way to the voteing boot, to boot you all out of office.
Learn to spell and continue to make noise, empty barrels!Only this site prints inferior, unintelligible matter.
S0 Sad, you didnt get it , not booth like voting box , like boot like walking shoes.to boot all of you out:)
Anonymous 9:15pm, They were speaking about how you spelled ‘voteing’, not ‘boot’ versus ‘booth’. The correct spelling is VOTING. You’ve been doing this for quite some time now. Please get SPELLCHECK.
Feel sorry for the Crucian lady who promotes herself as an educator but fails badly from the perspective of an intelligent person. For dewolf to let her go out front on his behalf is not in his best interest. Maybe he should declare a day in her honor, Lets call it public annoyance day.
It is sad that this woman, Verdel Petersen continously shames her family every day with her “sickness” on the airwaves. But, people please take solace and understand that those who are certifiable know not what they do. Having said that, this is a call and plea to her family, if they have not yet disowned her, to have her committed before November when she really will be sick!!!
I often wondered how those students who have been in Verdel Petersen classed fared? If her thinking is as flawed as it is on the airwaves, how has it been in the classroom when having to read and grade students papers? Did everyone pass or fail based on how her mind was working on any given day? I would like to hear some response from the parents of those students.
Is Verderl Petersen, Barbara “Sticky Fingers” Petersen’s (the STT and STJ Administrator) aunt or cousin?
May I remind everyone that Verdel Petersen is not a significant player in the “game.” None at all!
She is only a simple pawn.
The real focus is the King! King John, who is about to be checkmated.
Pay attention on Saturday at the AG Fair grounds. Observe carefully!
For sure, a lot will be revealed.
Question: do the MOST display of t-shirts equate with the MOST display of political support?
I have a radical suggestion for Election 2010.
He (or she) who comes with the least t-shirts, fried fish and worthless campaign junk wins.
It’s time to change the atmosphere of campaigning here. Get away from the cheap tricks and concentrate on the substance.
So it’s not about the money – it’s about competence, committment and community.
What do you think?
@ Clock
At this point we have to send the message clear and true. The more t-shirts at the AG/fair will send this administration a very clear indication that the people are looking in a different direction. The t-shirt is a barometer. Don’t take it as nothing more.
@ I Understand
I get that and certainly don’t want to underplay the visibility of all of this at the Ag Fair this weekend.
My point is to be sure we concentrate on the real issues and not get sucked into the trinkets. Greater minds than mine have the plan for this weekend.
Have at it. Get the message out in whatever way will be most effective. I’ll support the change – whatever form it takes.
With King John if they want to keep they jobs they better come with the t-shirts on. if this the type of place we want to live in? I say NO!
We want the supporters of this administration to know we mean business and we want to build confidence in the undecided and the ones who are afraid to come out in support.
I want the ones who are classified and not in policy making positions to know that they can not harass you regarding your job for political reasons. There is a system set up to report this illegal action. A Federal Law protects you. Everyone has the right to publicly support who they want. Except for those who are appointed to policy making positions and are serving at the pleasure of dewolf.
@’Sensibility’: Not only that,if their supervisors know who they are politically supporting and have a problem with that,they (the supervisors) CANNOT use that to unfairly rate their annual job performance in an effort to either deny them a pay raise (althouigh I don’t see how they could do that)or,seek to portray them in an unfavorable light.You’d amazed as to the kinds of crap
that some supervisors will engage in…even when dealing with a unionized employee.However,employees need to know both their obligations to their employer and their rights as employees.Its a two-way street.Understand that!!