After Gov. Charles Turnbull’s government reorganization plan was presented to the Legislature last week with several chapters missing, at least one senator is questioning the administration’s motives.
On Monday, Sen. Adelbert Bryan requested missing information in at least five areas of the plan from Juel Molloy, Turnbull’s chief of staff and one of three people who presented the document to the Senate Finance Committee last Wednesday.
As of Tuesday, Bryan was still waiting.
"It is obvious that some attempt is being made to misrepresent or mislead the members of the 23rd Legislature on the plans of the Turnbull/James Administration to reorganize the government of the Virgin Islands," Bryan wrote in a letter to Molloy on Tuesday.
During the Finance Committee hearing last week, Molloy said that because of the size and scope of the reorganization plan, pages may have been left out by mistake during copying. On Sept. 17, Molloy advised Finance Chairwoman Lorraine Berry that the missing pages would be supplied early this week.
In her response to Bryan, Molloy said that in keeping with the just-passed Government Financial Accountability Act of 1999, the only item due the Legislature on Oct. 23 is the reorganization plan.
"It was an error of judgment to attempt to provide the Legislature with all of the other documents, which were not required," she wrote.
Molloy said that since the proposed reorganization plan reached Bryan and other senators five weeks before the deadline she asked senators to review it and alert her to omissions.
Molloy's response, however, didn't satisfy Bryan.
"It is obvious that the missing sections were not inadvertently left out," Bryan said. "I must simply ask, are you going to provide me with copies of the missing items in the Reorganization and Consolidation Plan…?"
Bryan is requesting sections that were listed, but not included, in the plan’s chapters on the Executive Summary and Legislation; Present Structure and Operations of Executive Agencies and Departments; Proposed Structure and Operations; Projected Savings; and Exhibits.