Virgin Islands property and procurement officials report backlog, GVIbuy rollout issues and disputed leases

The Department of Property and Procurement told the Committee on Government Operations, Veterans Affairs and Consumer Protection on Feb. 24 that the agency is managing a large real‑property portfolio and a heavy contract workload while struggling with vendor payments and the final integration step of a new procurement platform.

The briefing came as Commissioner Lisa M. Alejandro and senior department staff described leases, capital projects and the agency's e‑procurement rollout. "The GVIbuy system is an e‑procurement system," Commissioner Alejandro said, adding it is intended to cover “the entire procurement process” from requisition to check release. She told senators the platform is live for requisitioning but that “the only issue we have right now is at the final end where the last approval, which is finance, presses a button and the check is printed through the Tyler Munis system.”

The department framed the update around three operational tracks: property and lease management, contract execution and vehicle/asset management. The property division manages about 190 tenants on government property with an annual rent roll around $3,996,318, and the division is renegotiating leases and pursuing eight lease agreements pending ratification or legislative action. On contracts, Alejandro reported that in fiscal 2024 the executive branch executed 407 contracts totaling approximately $1,013,164,079.87 and that through Feb. 6, 2025 the department had executed 96 contracts for roughly $38,714,918.95 for FY2025 to date.

The department also described four priority disaster‑recovery facilities that have been in design and engineering phases and said cost escalation and the previous shortage of A/E capacity delayed moving projects to construction. Assistant Commissioner Vincent Richards told the committee the department expects to solicit construction services once updated cost estimates and final A/E documents are ready: “We’re close to putting them out the door to getting them done, completed this year.”

On vendor relations and payment processing, the commissioner said vendor registration has risen to about 3,342 vendors in GVIBuy, including 549 registered beginning June 1, 2024. She thanked the Legislature for passage of Act No. 89‑54 (Dec. 2, 2024), which the department said allowed expanded delegated procurement authority. The department also reported training nearly 383 government employees on procurement statute changes and training roughly 164 employees in contract administration.

Senators pressed the department on specific lease examples and collections. Assistant Commissioner Richards said roughly 80–90% of tenants are current on rent but acknowledged a small number of long‑running delinquencies, one of which he said had remained unpaid for about 10 years and where the department had received a favorable Supreme Court ruling and was moving to execute an eviction writ. Senators also queried the pace of repairs to government buildings damaged in storms and leases where private developers had not begun promised construction.

On GVIBuy, the department said software engineers and Tyler Munis engineers were working on an error that prevents the final accounts‑payable action required to release checks. “We are in the live testing environment,” the commissioner said, and later added, “Our hope is to have it done by June 2025.”

What happened next: senators requested follow‑up information on specific contracts and leases, including an instruction for the department to deliver a 90‑day report on a stalled hotel redevelopment. Alejandro said the department is pursuing additional staffing and training and is redesigning asset‑management and vehicle policies, and that it is exploring an online sales/auction platform for surplus government vehicles.

Why it matters: the department manages real property, government leases and a large contract portfolio that affect revenue, government operations and disaster recovery work. Delays in payment processing, unresolved long‑running leases and slow progress on disaster repairs have budgetary and service impacts for government agencies and for private vendors and tenants.

Provenance: Committee hearing testimony and Q&A with Commissioner Lisa Maria Alejandro and senior staff (Feb. 24, 2025).