Senate President Milton Potter announced Saturday that the Legislature has begun a formal legal review of the salary increases recently processed for the governor and lieutenant governor, saying the move raises serious constitutional questions about executive authority and legislative oversight.
The announcement comes the morning after Senate Vice President Kenneth Gittens called the raises “shameful and unjust,” demanding immediate legal action to stop what he described as an illegal pay hike carried out without legislative approval. At a heated Senate Budget Committee hearing Friday, lawmakers confirmed that the raises were processed last week and made retroactive to Dec. 2, 2024 — increasing the governor’s annual salary from $150,000 to $192,000 and the lieutenant governor’s from $125,000 to $168,000.
“This is simply unconscionable,” Gittens said in a statement Friday night, pointing to long-standing delays in retroactive wage payments to government workers and retirees, as well as emergency funding for hospitals that has yet to be disbursed. “We have debts to our employees, our vendors, our hospitals. And now, the top two executives are getting pay raises? It’s indefensible.”
In January, the Source first reported that Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. had accepted the recommendation of the now-defunct Public Employees Compensation Commission to increase executive salaries. But a legal opinion issued weeks later by the Legislature’s chief legal counsel concluded that such raises would violate Virgin Islands law, which requires legislative action to adjust the compensation of the territory’s top elected officials.
Despite the opinion, Personnel Director Cindy Richardson testified Friday that the raises were implemented — retroactive to early December — without any legislative appropriation or debate. Months ago, the governor said there would be no additional appropriations, or supplemental, to the government’s already-approved budget, but rather adjustments from personnel cost savings.
Gittens and others called for the immediate filing of a temporary restraining order to block the payments.
Meanwhile, a separate bill passed Friday seeks to rein in the long-term cost of the raises by capping the retirement annuities of future governors and lieutenant governors. Under current law, the annuity is calculated as 80% of the sitting salary after two terms. With the new pay scale, that would push the annual pension for a two-term governor to more than $150,000 — a scenario Senate Majority Leader Kurt Vialet called financially reckless.
The bill passed 6-1 but drew criticism from the administration for targeting only two positions instead of pursuing broader retirement reform. Still, for many senators, Friday’s developments were the last straw.
“If we can’t control executive compensation, we’ve lost our power as the first branch of government,” said Sen. Hubert Fredericks. “This whole thing makes the public question whether we’re really serving them at all.”
The Legislature’s legal review is expected to be swift, Potter said Saturday.
St. Croix Source
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