V.I. senators will get free travel and accommodations to come to St. Thomas for V.I. Carnival next month, according to a memorandum sent to all Legislature staff Monday.
The memo signed by Senate President Ronald Russell outlines administrative leave for central staff during Carnival. St. Thomas central staff is scheduled for a half day off April 25 for Food Fair, a full day off April 26 and 27 for J’Ouvert and Children’s Parade. St. Croix staff will have April 27 off, to fly over for the Children’s Parade.
Acknowledging the government’s fiscal crisis, the memo couches the free travel and lodgings for senators in terms of overall cost savings. "We will have our customary booth, but to cut expenses, we are trying to arrange for in-kind donations for food and drinks," Russell wrote.
"Additionally, travel and hotel accommodations will be provided to Senators only. Travel will not be provided for senatorial or central staff employees," he said.
Sources within the Legislature said it was unusual to formally announce that senators will get free travel and lodging for Carnival and the past practice had been to schedule an informational committee hearing the day before, so the government would pay for senators to travel for government business.
However a scan of V.I. Senate calendars posted at the V.I. Source show that no such hearing occurred right before 2011 V.I. Carnival. On April 26, 2010, the day before Carnival Village opened, there was an informational hearing scheduled "to discuss the status of housing in the territory," and no other hearings that week or the following week.
Excuse me? What? This is a severely misleading headline. They are not getting FREE lodging. They are paying for it with our tax money like they always have. When in the hell are they going to get the picture that we are BROKE? They just fired staff members because they are over budget, and now those savings will be used for thier campaigning at Carnival……and so sad that the idiot voters (not all, just the stupid ones) will elect them again because they got a free chicken leg……
AGREE AGREE AGREE. THERE IS NOTHING FREE. SOMEONE SOMEWHERE IS PAYING FOR IT. IN THIS CASE IT’S US THE TAXPAYER.
These senators are overpaid enormous salaries which they voted themselves and which have chosen NOT TO RESCIND depsite taxpayer protest.
They just got thru wasting, misusing and stealing $6.9 Million of OUR Taxpayer Money and we get to pay, again, for them to lodge and travel for FREE! Plus they get paid for all the time they waste, partying.
This is DISGUSTING and Virgin Islanders should be FED UP! They can afford to pay their own ways with what they make on their salaries and what they steal from us time and time again.
Vote these guys OUT!
WHY AREN’T WE RECALLING THESE CROOKS? We put together enough signatures to recall a few Board of Elections people who aren’t one tenth as as bad as our Senators. THEY’RE JUST PICKING OUR POCKETS TO PAY FOR THEIR FUN AND GAMES LIKE AMORAL, SPOILED CHILDREN. These thieves are already outrageously overpaid, unbelievably incompetent, outrageously venal and now they have the unmitigated gall to publicly boast that they’re stiffing us once again. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!
Wow past pratices???? In hard time I don’t care what they did in the past. They should not be receiving anything free at the tax payers expense. These senators have lost their minds with this nonsense. They should have been thinking about that when the took and mispent the 6.9 million in tax payers money without any care for the tax payers. Now they are in our face again showing us they are going to do whatever they want. I say lock all of them up and throw away the key. Set of crocks.
“We will have our customary booth, but to cut expenses, we are trying to arrange for in-kind donations for food and drinks,” Russell wrote.
WE NEED TO HAVE THESE “DONATIONS” audited when it’s over!! They will STEAL any, all or part of that also People! The governor cannot allow these knuckelheads to do this to us. I am forwarding this to some major publications and lawyers in the states to get some ‘feedback’………..BS!
Thank you,
Digging for justice.
That has been proven not to work. Remember the referendum when we voted to reduce the size of the legislature, and they refused to act on it because “the people were not properly informed and were not fully aware of what they were voting for”?…:..
Besides, it takes money for a recall election, and if they do not appropriate funds, they can be no recall election……
I had to pay my OWN WAY over to STT to find out why I still haven’t received my 2010 VIBIR refund(“You’re not getting it. The Government doesn’t have any money. Don’t get upset with us…go talk to Government House.”) Anybody else out there STILL WAITING for their tax refunds? Mine would be less than 1 Senator’s Carnival transportation allowance! (We need to have a place to register so Feds realize HOW MANY of us there are!!!! which is SYSTEMIC TAX FRAUD. Source: are you interested in being a ‘clearing house’?) These Senators ought to be pelted with rotten eggs if they show up at Carnival!
Yes, I have not received mine either. They confirmed that all is in order, that I am on the list for the next check run, but the Legislature will not forward the yearly 30 million refund allowance because they are using it for operating expenses.
Since someone mentioned tax refunds, here is a little finance lesson…………………..
Today:
Top savings account interest today – 0.9%
Top CD interest rate – 1.75% 5 year………………
interest on both is taxable…………………………….
NOW, have extra taxes taken from your paycheck, file for your refund on the last day so that you are far down the list for refunds. ….in a year or so (but never over 2 years yet for me) get your refund at 4% interest – yes, 4%, and because the local IRB does not report the interest it pays you to themselves, and does not issue a 1099INT form, your interest is tax free!!!
Alana, you are so very correct. These people are slapping us in the face EVERY DAY. The arrogance of it all is just unbelievable! This is outrageous that these senators can take another bold brazen and outright rude slap at us! Is there no one in government that is willing to speak up????? What kind of government business requires these liars and ongoing felons to attend a citizens driven event and charge it to the taxpayers? Drink rum, eat chicken legs, swill beer, tell lies, and other tall tales, while they are self promoting their political selves. And oh, by the way, who pays for the hotel rooms and the cars and fuel and security and all the other things that THEY should be paying for themselves. It’s just disgusting, and no one in any position of any kind of authority even opens their mouths. And the rich get richer and the dirty get filthy-er. Call in the Feds, investigate every one of them, expose them for who they truly are, charge them for every crime committed, and send them to prison. Just who do they think they are?? Oh, and get rid of the governor and his dirtbags too
Judith, The Source is the last place to look as a clearing house. They are well entrenched in the governors little group of awestruck a$$kissers, and do anything the governor wants them to do. They have no spine, and do not stand for balanced journalism.
I agree 100% with 911 on this point.
It’s time to start talking about rebellion…
(yeah really)
This government is ineffectual, corrupt, and when the public actually speaks (with votes and petitions) the government doesnt listen…
Thomas Jefferson –
“On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?” – Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 12, 1781
Our Government has proven themselves mostly useless. They are devoid of a conscious. They only consider themselves and some of the people who carry their banners. We have a lawyer leading the Senate ignorant to basic laws and his Senate thieves holding the Territories’ purse. Worse of all, voters are generally ignorant and easily persuaded with wine, fish or chicken. A rebellion, maybe. But how can we rebel from our own complacency and empty heads. Who leads the idiots but the biggest one!
jvw3120
let’s get Local into Tourism
MY hse for a $1000/wk or B/B for a $100/day