With 6 Days Cash On Hand, Finance Commissioner Talks About Next Steps For Virgin Islands
ST. CROIX — In a long-ranging exclusive interview with The Virgin Islands Consortium Wednesday night, Department of Finance Commissioner and Public Finance Authority Executive Director Valdamier Collens, spoke in careful but blunt terms about the financial condition of the territory, the status of the V.I.’s ability to access the bond market, measures that will be taken to mitigate the impact of a government that’s struggling to maintain liquidity, and why the process of a long-delayed government overhaul must begin in short order.
From the onset of the interview, Mr. Collens was straightforward, as he’s always been with this publication, about the territory’s financial condition. “The days cash on hand is approximately 6 at this point,” he said. He reiterated that the Government of the Virgin Islands could no longer access the bond market because of the territory’s junk-status bond rating, a structural deficit that has lingered for over a decade, and the market’s lack of confidence in the government’s ability to reform itself.
“It’s not even an assumption anymore, we have to act in a way in which we don’t have access until we demonstrate to ourselves — not to the bond market — that we want to fix our structural deficit. So for starters we know $110 million is out of the budget, and so we have to act accordingly to adjust and revise our budget,” Mr. Collens said.
The day of reckoning, then, is here. While Governor Kenneth Mapp was not clear during his State of the Territory Address on this matter (Mr. Collens argued that the governor was), Mr. Collens said the territory would not even attempt to access the market anytime soon, whether or not the 32nd Legislature passed the governor’s proposed five-year economic recovery sin tax measure. And even if the measure were to become law, both the bond market and the government would wait up to a full year or more before restarting negotiations. The commissioner’s words were a blunt and sobering acknowledgement that the financial collapse was no longer going to happen, but is now in play.
Read more: http://viconsortium.com/politics/exclusive-6-days-cash-hand-territory-finance-commissioner-talks-next-steps-u-s-virgin-islands/
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