Senate Passes Budget Amid Argument that Process is Unfair

The U.S. Virgin Islands Senate Friday passed the 29 bills that encompass the territory’s budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, but the rules governing the session prompted one member to complain that “something is fundamentally wrong” with the government’s budget process. “We are doing more damage to the people of this territory as opposed to spending time to do what is right,” Sen. Alma Francis-Heyliger said. Sen. Kurt Vialet had called for a motion to consolidate the amount of time spent discussing the bills, limiting debate to four minutes on all 29 bills. His motion passed, 8 to 4. Senate President Donna Frett-Gregory felt the need to explain.

“I think it’s important to explain what’s just occurred,” she said. “All the bills on the agenda today went through the committee process … and all senators had an opportunity to discuss the bills … and vote at least once before today. Except one senator. Herein lies why we are moving forward with a debate time of four minutes in block one, and we are going to vote the bills up or down today and we’ll move forward,” Frett-Gregory said.

But Francis-Heyliger used the majority of her four-minute of comment to dissent from the rules and Frett-Gregory’s explanation.

“All senators did not have an opportunity to participate in the process,” she said.

Francis-Heyliger pointed out that she is not a member of either the Finance Committee, which first took testimony on the budget bills and debated them during a summer-long series of hearings, or the Rules Committee, which gave final perusal of the bills before passing them on to the Senate as a whole. Not sitting on either committee, Friday’s meeting of the full Senate was the first opportunity she had to vote.

Francis-Heyliger said as a first-term senator she came into the institution believing “that I would be able to participate fully as a duly elected, equal member.” She said her experiences during the budget process were “unfortunate.”

Recalling a Finance Committee hearing, she said the meeting had been delayed until shortly before 3 p.m. The bills were dealt with pro forma, as a formality.