No Official Budget Data, Paychecks to Someone No Longer Employed: Taxicab Commission Slammed For Mismanagement

The executive director of the VI Taxicab Commission, Vernice Gumbs had another difficult day before the Senate Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance, as lawmakers expressed extreme disappointment at the lack of progress on the commission’s chronic issues.

As committee chair Senator Donna Frett-Gregory explained, the commission did not present a valid budget request during the fiscal year 2024 appropriations cycle last year, despite several scheduled appearances before the committee. As such, funding was only appropriated to cover personnel costs. On Monday, “we need to hear from the Taxicab Commission to determine the appropriate amounts to appropriate for the FY ‘24 budget,” Senator Frett-Gregory said. “Hopefully we’ll hear from them today on their current revenues that they’re collecting and their previous revenues that they’ve collected in 2023 to support their requests for the budget.”

During her testimony, Ms. Gumbs advanced a request for $1,506,900.35, of which approximately 60 percent would go to salaries and fringe benefits. A sum of just under $480,000 would be used on a digitization project that would “fully automate internal processes,” she said, while also giving “employees and stakeholders…the ability to conduct business remotely, efficiently and effectively” online.

However, Ms. Gumbs soon proved to be unable to supply key information requested by lawmakers that would help them determine whether to allocate the requested amount of funding. There was no official record of any revenue collected for the St. Thomas/St. John district, for example, a circumstance explained thusly by the executive director. “When I asked the collection clerk to assist me, she refused…she not only refused, but she left and went home for the day, feeling sick.”