Last Friday's Senate Finance Committee hearing chaired by Senator Clifford Graham set an historic precedent by allowing St Croix Senators to cast their vote via teleconference from the St Croix Chamber. This was the first time a vote of this kind took place in the US Virgin Islands Legislature.

 

When news came that voting on a lease agreement had been cleared from the hearing agenda and there were only two previously-vetted land acquisitions to be voted on, Senator Buckley questioned how long the meeting would take and whether it was worth the expense of flying the St Croix Senators over to St Thomas for such a brief meeting.  Senator Graham expressed that he thought the meeting would take 30 minutes or less. At that time, Senator Buckley inquired about the possibility of teleconferencing and to his credit, Senator Graham had already reviewed the 30th Legislature Rules book, and cited that it was permissible.

 

" In light of the Department of Property and Procurement rescinding the lease agreement from the agenda, it was more fiscally prudent, especially as the Finance committee, to save the taxpayers of the Virgin Islands money and have the St. Croix senators participate via teleconference." reported Senator Graham.

 

Senators Buckley and Nelson joined the meeting via telephone from the Senate chambers on St. Croix, while Sen. O'Reilly dialled in.  All St Croix committee members were able to cast their vote using this unprecedented method.

 

"While the technology we currently have isn't sufficient to conduct meetings on a regular basis, it sufficed for today since it was a brief hearing.  It reopened the conversation about the need to upgrade our technology so that we can save money and time while getting the peoples' work done." said Senator Buckley.

 

As a Finance Committee member, Senator Buckley is going to work with her colleagues to identify monies to fund the upgrades that are necessary to facilitate broadcast-quality video conference for Senate Committee hearings on St Croix and St Thomas. Allowing the two chambers to be connected in real time will have the potential of saving tax payers millions of dollars in travel fees for Senators, Commissioners and other testifiers. Additionally, it would reduce occurrences of Senators having to excuse themselves early from hearings to catch flights.