Waste Management Authority’s Assessment Dispute with PSC Headed for Court After Denial

The V.I. Management Authority is still on the hook for their unpaid annual assessments to the Public Services Commission, after a request for reconsideration was denied during Tuesday's PSC board meeting.

For years, the two entities have been in disagreement over just how much WMA owes its regulator. An annual assessment of over $400,000 should be reduced to just $14,000 per year, argued WMA legal counsel Florence Kahugu last February, when the reconsideration petition was first heard and denied.

During Tuesday's meeting, attorney Kahugu presented much the same arguments as she had throughout the process, insisting that the money WMA receives via legislative appropriation should not be considered as operating revenue for the purposes of calculating what they owe the PSC.

However, like last year, commissioners were not swayed by that framing. David Hughes noted that “last year's petition was denied by the Commission on its merits,” and also that the argument WMA's attorney made on Tuesday did not “appear to be a different argument than was made in the last petition for reconsideration.”