ST. CROIX — The Virgin Islands government’s official transparency website, transparency.vi.gov, is supposed to serve as a searchable database that is updated regularly to give the public a clear view of how government money is collected, spent, and managed.
While the website provides free access to important financial data, a review of the site compared with legal requirements outlined in the Virgin Islands Government Transparency Act of 2019 shows that some elements are missing.
The website provides access to several major categories of financial information that address part of the law’s intent, including budget, revenue, and expenditure data as well as payroll and salary information.
It is supposed to contain a comprehensive database of recipients and expenditures of the territory’s funds, inclusive of all government instrumentalities, the Virgin Islands Legislature, local courts, and all semi-autonomous agencies.
However, several statutory requirements appear to be missing based on a review of the site.
There is no obvious section on the site that lists all semiautonomous agencies and their individual expenditures in the same searchable way as executive branch departments. The site does not show when datasets were last updated, making it difficult for the public to determine whether agencies are complying with the 30-day submission deadline after the data becomes available to them.
While spending totals are available for government agencies, the law requires information about who got the money, how much, from which agency, and for what purpose. This level of detail is not consistently visible. It is also not clear whether five full fiscal years of data are available as required by law.
While budget and expenditure data are available, required bond debt information — including interest payments, refinancing, and remaining balances — is not clearly presented. There is no comprehensive contracts section showing all government contracts, subcontracts, and recipients. The site does not clearly show local aid to each department, including amounts paid to individual units of government for individually identifiable aid programs.
The law requires direct links to local or federal audits or reports, but these are not linked from the site itself. The law also calls for the governor, lieutenant governor, VI Legislature, and all government agencies to include a link to the database in their official websites. This requirement is not met by all entities.
While the Virgin Islands Office of Management and Budget, Department of Finance, and Bureau of Information Technology were required to establish the transparency website in 2020 to provide the public with user-friendly access to financial information, the site does not yet appear to fully meet all statutory requirements. Until contracts, bond debt, audits, agency links, and detailed funding actions are clearly and consistently published, the site falls short of the law’s intent.
OMB Director Julio Rhymer said his office continues working with personnel from the Department of Finance and BIT to keep the information on the website up to date. He discussed an ongoing effort to obtain the necessary information from autonomous and semiautonomous agencies so it can be included on the site.
“As we rebuild the site, we’re still working on the pieces to add to the site to make it as transparent as possible,” he said.
CEO’s note: The Virgin Islands Public Broadcasting System, the umbrella semiautonomous entity for WTJX-TV, WTJX-FM, and the WTJX NewsFeed, is subject to The Virgin Islands Government Transparency Act. We have been engaged with OMB’s contractor since 2022 to ensure compliance with the law. We have submitted the requisite information and, at times, have proactively followed up to facilitate our transition to the transparency website. To date, the station’s information, as required by law, is not reflected on the site. OMB’s contractor has advised our Business Office that they are working diligently and will contact us when the new site is live to collect our information.
