The Bryan administration says it is now processing minimum salary increases for government employees — an assurance that comes as Senate Majority Leader Kurt Vialet continues to criticize the executive branch for missing the law’s Oct. 1 implementation date.
The measure — Bill No. 36-0053 — raised government employees’ minimum salary to $35,000 a year, an adjustment affecting hundreds of classified employees whose pay previously fell below that threshold. The Legislature overrode Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.’s veto of the proposal on June 27, giving agencies the green light to begin preparing for the change months in advance.
In a statement Tuesday, Vialet said the delay has now gone far beyond what is reasonable. “This law was enacted months ago,” he said. “From June 27 to Oct. 1, there was more than enough time to prepare, process, and finalize these NOPAs. Yet here we are, beyond the implementation date, and employees still have not received their legally mandated raises. That is unacceptable.”
He noted that fewer than 700 Notices of Personnel Action are required to bring the workforce into compliance, raising questions, he said, about whether the continued slowdown is a matter of agency-level inaction, administrative bottlenecks, or something more deliberate.
Within hours, the Division of Personnel released its own update, confirming that NOPA actions are being processed as agencies submit them and that “several agencies” have already completed their transactions. But the division also pointed to one of the central complications behind the delay: although the law mandated a new minimum salary, it did not fund the fringe benefit increases linked to those salary adjustments.
Each agency has been required to identify those costs within its existing FY 2026 budget, a task Personnel says could not begin in earnest until the Legislature passed the final budget in September, weeks before the law was scheduled to take effect.
Personnel officials said they attempted to mitigate delays by issuing a joint memorandum with the Office of Management and Budget and the Finance Department in October, providing standardized NOPA language and documentation requirements. They also said they prioritized the minimum salary work during the recent federal shutdown, advancing all eligible agencies except the Education Department, which processes its own personnel actions. According to the division, wage adjustments will appear in payroll cycles once OMB approves the NOPAs and agencies complete the required submissions.
The friction between the two branches of government over this issue has been growing since the spring. Reporting by the Virgin Islands Source has chronicled the debate from the moment the bill was introduced: senators argued that no government employee should earn less than $35,000 a year, given the territory’s rising cost of living, while Bryan vetoed the measure, citing concerns about unfunded mandates and long-term financial impact. After the veto override, lawmakers pressed the administration for a concrete implementation plan, warning that slow NOPA processing and agency-level preparation would become choke points.
Personnel maintains it is “committed to transparency, timely communication, and ongoing support,” while Vialet says he will continue monitoring the situation until every employee sees the mandated increase reflected in their pay.
St. Croix Source
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