Funding Failures Leave National Guard Without Water, Unpaid for Festival Duty, and Behind on Veteran Pensions

With over 40% of its FY2025 budget still unreleased by the local government, the V.I. National Guard faces water shortages, unpaid pensions, and delayed TAD wages—issues that led troops to skip St. Thomas Carnival duty after not being paid.

Despite there being only one more quarter in the FY2025 fiscal year, the Office of the Adjutant General says over 40% of its budget appropriation “has not been released,” placing the Office’s operations in a precarious position. Insufficient funding, lawmakers learned, is affecting the Office’s ability to purchase drinking water for members of the Virgin Islands National Guard.

This was only one of several worry-inducing revelations shared by Adjutant General Kodjo Knox-Limbacker and his team when they presented their FY2026 budget request to the Committee on Budget, Appropriations, and Finance on Monday. This time, the Office is requesting $3,243,939 from the general fund, including $396,000 as a cost-share amount for its federal master cooperative agreement. This, as the Office expects to receive $46,956,770 in federal funding, “16 times” more than the amount being requested from the general fund.

Nikita Ward, the Office’s executive director, provided a breakdown on the general fund budget request, which includes a “miscellaneous budget appropriation of $150,000 for the Virgin Islands National Guard pension fund and $982,242 for the Youth About Face and Ford March program. The appropriation covers $1,343,855 in personnel costs and $630,406 in fringe benefits. Other services are budgeted at $508,338 while utilities are expected to cost $410,000. Capital projects are expected to cost an additional $220,180.

The Office’s approved budget, however, “continues to be inaccessible to fully execute those requirements for water,” Knox-Limbacker told committee chair Senator Novelle Francis, who had introduced the topic. The federal government is unable to foot such a bill as “those basic facilities are requirements of the GVI.”