Delivering Change

Restoring confidence. Delivering care. Supporting every generation.

Every Virgin Islander deserves to trust that when they need care, the care will be there. The Plaskett–Potter Administration is committed to rebuilding that confidence — from primary care and hospital services to behavioral health and senior support.

Practice in Paradise

We understand that part of the basis of providing quality healthcare is making sure we keep and attract the best talent. This is true for other critical areas of our community as well. Through Practice in Paradise, we will establish a dedicated healthcare worker recruitment program that combines a resume repository, competitive and on-time physician pay, and housing stipends to attract top medical talent to the Virgin Islands and keep them here. The same model will extend to teachers, police officers, and EMTs — because recruiting essential professionals requires the same commitment across every sector.

How we take care of the most vulnerable in our community is a reflection of the values and longevity of a stable community. We recognize that the Government must do its part, but we also need to provide timely assistance and coordination with the many non-profits in our community who work to address these issues on a daily basis. In the Plaskett–Potter Administration, we will work collaboratively with our stakeholders to fund and create wrap-around services to those with mental health challenges and create more senior assisted living communities and programs.

As we work to bring in more healthcare professionals, physically on the island, we will continue investments in telemedicine. This will give our community more access to specialists of different medical disciplines.

For too long, the Virgin Islands energy system has been forced to operate in a reactive posture, with our utility functioning as a bailout-dependent crisis manager rather than a business-driven energy provider. That changes now. In the Plaskett/Potter Administration, we will take the meaningful first step to conducting disciplined, system-level due diligence to fully understand the technical, financial, and operational realities of our grid and end the cycle of reactionary billion-dollar decisions that benefit contractors & consultants while leaving our community exposed to insufferable energy burdens. We will reposition the utility as a performance-based, commercially focused entity that delivers reliable, cost-conscious energy services while leveraging federal resources to stabilize the system in the near term. By decentralizing our grid and expanding the deployment and utilization of distributed solar, battery storage, and community microgrids, we will move away from single points of failure and toward a resilient, modern energy ecosystem and bring the benefits of the energy transition directly to the homes and businesses desperate for relief. This is how we restore trust, reduce outages, and deliver innovative, resilient energy services to every Virgin Islander.

Teacher Recruitment, Preparation and Retention

People Powered means investing in the present and the future of our people. The Plaskett–Potter Administration will invest in teachers, expand opportunity, and ensure our young people stay engaged and on a path to success.

This includes meaningful investments to strengthen our teachers pool, by retaining those who are currently doing the work and attracting new teachers. We will create the Virgin Islands Teacher Corps, which will offer tuition forgiveness, housing stipends, the benefits of our Practice in Paradise program, and accelerated certification for local candidates and mainland recruits, while we partner with UVI to expand teacher-prep pipelines and grow bilingual and special-education capacity.

Plaskett/Potter will work with our local AFT to create multi-year salary and benefits plan that are tied to retention milestones and create a bonus program for hard-to-fill subject bonuses. This will stabilize our workforce, while increasing our local teacher supply, which will reduce turnover costs.

Career Pathways and Postsecondary Alignment

In the Plaskett–Potter Administration, our Career and Technical Education will be a focus. We will tie programs to our local industries, including construction, tourism, maritime, renewable energy, and healthcare. We will create partnerships with the University of the Virgin Islands and our future Technical College that will allow for dual-enrollment for our students, while developing apprenticeship opportunities with private sector partners. We will partner with local and national unions to help facilitate the training of our future masons, electricians, plumbers and carpenters.

In the digital space we will continue to build upon the efforts of the UVI RTPark and the University of the Virgin Islands to create additional educational pathways for our students to develop technology skills, including coding and Artificial Intelligence expertise. This will increase the employability of our students locally, and align our students with the current and future needs of our Territory and the world.

Increasing After-School Programming

The Plaskett–Potter Administration recognizes that we must invest in and prioritize our children. This includes investments in the Department of Sports, Parks and Recreation for additional and expanded community programming. We recognize the importance of after-school programming, with a variety of offerings to appeal to all students. The Plaskett–Potter Administration will expand and increase programs to include academic support, the visual arts, music, and sports.

Central Government: Adopt a School

Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett has always believed in going the extra mile and giving back, which is why for the past 12 years, her office has adopted schools. In the Plaskett–Potter Administration, this will continue and expand. Every Government Agency will Adopt a School, and each appointed executive in each Agency from Commissioners to Deputy Commissioners, will be required to provide 4 hours of support to their adopted school a month. It is important that our leaders directly engage with, and give back to, our future generations.

Early Literacy and Intervention

In the Plaskett–Potter Administration, the Virgin Islands Department of Education will create a Territory-wide literacy initiative, for Kindergarten through Third Grade, with evidence-based curricula, daily intervention blocks, and reading coaches in every school. This initiative will measure progress using benchmark assessments.

Our students need and deserve intentional attention and support, and in the Plaskett–Potter Administration, we will ensure access. Programs that provide additional support, speciality referrals, and intervention programs will be fully funded and staffed. This will help ensure the long-term achievement and success of students and reduce remediation costs.

Virgin Islanders deserve a government that is honest about what it is doing and held accountable when it falls short. The Plaskett–Potter Administration will build the tools, processes, and culture of accountability that residents have long demanded.

Communication Tools

In the Plaskett–Potter Administration, we recognize that some members of our community may not know who to call when they have a vexing issue in our community, from uncut grass to potholes to sewage running in the streets. We have a solution for that, #311. We will create a non-emergency government line that connects citizens directly to government services. Data from those calls will be used to identify inefficiencies, track agency performance, and ensure resources are directed where they are needed most. This will help guide future budget decisions and ensure resources are allocated to that have the greatest impact on our quality life.

Accountability

In the Plaskett–Potter Administration, we believe that what gets measured gets done. All aspects of our government will be accountable to the community and our fellow government employees. This includes goals for each agency that can be measured, tracked and published. We will produce Quarterly scorecards that monitor progress of those goals. The Plaskett–Potter Administration will create a system for the public to provide real-time feedback about interactions with agencies. This system will include a star-rating system based upon several metrics, including timeliness, overall experience, and community satisfaction. This will be used as a management tool for supervisors and managers to continually improve service to our public.

Compliance audits will be continually conducted for procurement, grant management, and contractor performance. This will identify inefficiencies in processes that can be streamlined to provide faster services to our community, ensure processes are fair and equal to all our contractors/vendors, and provide the best value for investments.

Interagency IT Integration

Gone will be the days of having to take one document from one agency to the next to get signed or processed. In the Plaskett–Potter Administration, we will develop a centralized Information Technology (IT) interconnectivity platform to link all government agencies, departments, and authorities. We will establish standardized software and hardware platforms to enable real-time data sharing. This will reduce the need for trips to multiple agencies or divisions to complete the same transaction.

We will implement secure cloud-based data management for interagency collaboration and disaster recovery. This will provide us with redundancy in the event of a national disaster. Our departments will be able to reopen more quickly and protect information from physical damage to equipment and physical infrastructure.

Government Restructuring

The structure of the Government of the Virgin Islands has not been meaningfully assessed to determine if it meets the needs of our people in more than 40 years! In the Plaskett–Potter Administration, Lieutenant Governor Milton Potter, a Human Resources professional with over 20 years of experience will lead the Government restructuring team. The team will audit departments, examine roles, and evaluate it based on the needs of our community, the mandates of their offices, and create a plan that will bring our Government to modern times.

Strengthening food security while expanding economic opportunity.

A resilient Virgin Islands economy is rooted in the land and sea. We will expand local food production, build the infrastructure farmers need to reach markets, and develop an ocean economy that creates good jobs without competing with local fishermen.

We will build upon the existing federal Farm-to-School program, connecting local producers to school lunch programs using local funding, and we will require both the Government of the Virgin Islands and EDC-benefit hotels and resorts to make meaningful local sourcing commitments. Ferry system reforms will help St. Croix farmers expand into the St. Thomas market and better meet consumer demand across the territory. A value-added food processing system, along with assistance navigating organic certification, will open export markets to USVI agricultural producers.

We will advance the USVI Cooperative Development Act, giving farmers the legal foundation to form and operate cooperatives under territorial law aligned with federal standards, to coordinate production, marketing, and distribution. A multi-island Central Processing Facility — equipped with cold storage, packaging systems, and quality control infrastructure — will give farmers across all islands the shared resources they need to compete. The abattoir and other processing infrastructure will be fully supported and accessible territory-wide.

Smart farming tools will be available to improve yields and efficiency while working in partnership with traditional farming methods. A Territorial Agri-Tech Bank will lend advanced equipment to farmers and schools, paired with one-on-one, farm-based training that goes far beyond periodic classes. Intergenerational structures will connect younger farmers with elder farmers whose traditional knowledge is irreplaceable — a both-and approach that honors ancestral practice while embracing modern technology.

Our Blue Economy initiative will advance deep-sea farming operations outside local fishing zones for export markets, developing embedded aquaculture systems that complement rather than compete with territorial fishermen. The deep-sea farming concept offers a model for sustainable Caribbean-wide blue economic development that we are committed to advancing.

Cutting red tape. Accelerating recovery. Building to last.

Years after hurricanes Irma and Maria, too many Virgin Islanders are still waiting. The Plaskett–Potter Administration will restructure the Office of Disaster Recovery and stand up a high-accountability task force to drive results, resolve bottlenecks, and get projects finished. A weekly task force convening all relevant agency heads, major contractors, vendors, and community stakeholders will maintain a standing punch list for every active project — with named accountable parties and clear deadlines. We will systematically remove the bureaucratic obstacles that have stalled federally funded recovery work, and we will connect infrastructure progress to broader economic development goals, including the South Shore energy hub and the territory’s expanding digital infrastructure.

Safe communities for families, businesses, and our future.

Public safety is personal for the Plaskett–Potter team. Congresswoman Plaskett’s grandfather served as Assistant Commissioner of Police for the USVI, and both her father and Senator Potter’s father served as police officers. Congresswoman Plaskett began her career as a prosecutor and later served at the U.S. Department of Justice. This administration understands — from experience — what it takes to build and sustain safe communities.

We are committed to funding and recruiting more law enforcement officers at competitive pay that attracts and retains talent, and to directing police resources to the communities where they are needed most. We recognize that lasting public safety also requires economic opportunity — particularly for young people — and we will invest in the conditions, programs, and community partnerships that address the root causes of crime alongside enforcement. Stay tuned — more information is to come.

Connecting the Virgin Islands to the global economy.

The Virgin Islands is positioned to become a hub for digital innovation, sustainable tourism, and transshipment commerce. Building on years of work securing BEAD broadband funding, advancing the DiasporaLink Act through Congress, the Plaskett–Potter Administration will accelerate this vision.

Stay tuned for more information about our plans to connect Virgin Islanders worldwide with economic opportunity at home.

The Plaskett-Potter Administration will expand the cruise ship market, develop film, media, and medical tourism as high-value economic diversifiers, and leverage St. Croix’s National Heritage Area designation — one of only 62 throughout the United States — as a powerful engine for cultural tourism, local economic development, and national recognition of what makes the Virgin Islands extraordinary.

Building homes and opportunities.

The Virgin Islands housing crisis demands urgent, coordinated action. The Plaskett–Potter Administration will mobilize public and private resources, unlock land for development, and ensure that the workers who make our community run can afford to live here.

We will establish a Housing Acceleration Task Force and, within the first 100 days, make development-ready land available to private investors. We will provide bonding solutions that allow smaller, local construction companies to enter the market, and we will conduct a thorough audit of current housing programs — including VI Slice and the EnVision Program — to assess what is working and what is not.

Over the long term, we will review federally supported housing programs and, where appropriate, increase housing allotments and payment standards to better compete with market realities, including short-term rentals. Through Community Heroes and Good Neighbor Next Door programs, we will provide housing benefits to teachers, police officers, and first responders — because the people who serve our community deserve to be able to live in it.