Virgin Islands Stimulus Program on Track
Posted by Jean Greaux on November 12, 2009 at 4:30 PM AST

Governor de Jongh said today that the Virgin Islands has secured close to $120 million dollars in federal funds that were made available to the territory by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly referred to as the federal stimulus bill.

“Up to $120 million has been awarded the territory, over $2 million has been spent in these past few months and approximately 120 jobs have been created,” de Jongh said, noting that the Virgin Islands has done very well with its reporting back to the federal government on ARRA activity and overall performance in the various processes relating to the federal stimulus.

Executive Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) Julito Francis attended a meeting in Washington D.C. this week consisting of ARRA White House officials and representatives from across the nation and other territories for an update on how the obligating of federal stimulus dollars has progressed. 

"The purpose of the meetings was for all ARRA points of contact from local and state governments to report on ARRA activity in their respective communities."

"Some of the other states and territorial representatives spoke to the White House officials about their challenges which included computation of total jobs made available. For us in the Virgin Islands, we were pleased that we have interpreted the computation guidance correctly and shared those rules to all Virgin Islands recipients."

Thirteen entities from the Virgin Islands have pursued ARRA funding including the departments of Human Services, Health, Labor, Public Works, Education, Housing Finance Authority, Energy Office, Planning and Natural Resources, V.I. Housing Authority and the Law Enforcement Planning Commission. Other applicants from the private sector have included: East End Medical Center, Frederiksted Health Clinic, and the Women’s Coalition of St. Croix.

Francis said that the Virgin Islands was among the top performers in this week’s reporting. 

"The Virgin Islands has performed 100% reporting; 100% change requests performed, zero data anomalies, 100% of the funds from grantors accounted for and 100% match between federal agency reconciliation of award amounts and V.I. report."

Francis also added that the territory’s share of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund should be about $71 million and the Virgin Islands should receive about two-thirds or about $48 million of those funds by the end of the year. 

Also at the meeting this week, the Virgin Islands was invited to sit as a member on a Jobs Task Force that would formalize a process for counting jobs created from the implementation of ARRA funds:

“This process or methodology will serve as a model for job counting in all other states and territories. The credibility of the federal stimulus program in large part will rely on the number of jobs created from implementing the funds received."

Another area where the Virgin Islands performed well was in data collection:

“The Office of Economic Opportunity developed a funds management system specific for ARRA monies. The system focused on data collection and reuse, evidence collection, transparency, and full accountability. 

Francis said this week’s meetings pointed up that many states and other territories are struggling to quickly collect and report out on data and make changes on demand. "Although the OEO started out significantly later than other states and territory, we are today very much in-line and some cases, significantly ahead of many other jurisdictions," he said.

de Jongh said the role of the OEO has changed from primarily a program-project monitoring activity to a program-project management activity and that the office would guide program-project implementation for any government agency as necessary. 

“The OEO will add resources and deploy them where needed to make sure that the funds are spent and spent correctly while also ensuring that expenditures are being reported in a timely, transparent and fully accountable manner.” 

de Jongh said the use of ARRA funds eases the financial drain on the government’s General Fund at a time when the de Jongh Administration continues to come up with ways to combat the effects of the economic recession while, at the same time, providing quality services to Virgin Islands residents.