Bureau of No Construction: Lawmakers Blast Agency for Inaction on School Projects and Lack of Clear Maintenance Plans
Though formed to oversee the construction and maintenance of the territory’s public schools, the Bureau of School Construction and Maintenance is apparently unaware of key information relating to the rebuilding of several hurricane-damaged schools.
2025-06-18 12:13:12 - VI News Staff
When the bureau’s leadership appeared before the Committee on Education and Workforce Development on Tuesday, Executive Director Craig Benjamin could not supply committee chair Senator Kurt Vialet with start dates for work on the Central and Charlotte Amalie High Schools.
“That's going to be handled by Education and ODR,” Mr. Benjamin stated. The bureau, he said, won’t get involved until “ the schools are turned over to us.”
Senator Vialet was floored. “We fund a whole entity for millions of dollars, and now they're outside. They haven't turned over the school construction,” he outlined. “We set up bureaucracies, and then stuff don't change. So how can you set up a totally separate unit and you don't transfer the full responsibility?”
He reminded Mr. Benjamin that the bureau is “supposed to be intimately involved in school construction.” Instead, the executive director shared that the bureau merely participates in “progress meetings.” Vialet would later quip that the bureau should only be referred to as one for school maintenance. “The whole way that everything is structured ain't going according to the bill.”