Frederiksted

By Aldeth Lewin, as seen in the Virgin Islands Daily News on September 9th, 2009

Frederiksted Health Care Chief Executive Officer Masserae Sprauve Webster said the clinic has been negotiating the lease for about 10 years. "It is finally with the support and cooperation of the present administration that a lease has been agreed upon," Webster said. She said the lease is necessary to comply with federal funding requirements.

In 1996, the federal government mandated that nonprofit corporations operate community health centers and that the Health Department should regulate services, not provide them.

The V.I. government did not take steps to separate its community health clinics from the central government until 2000, when St. Thomas East End Medical Center and Frederiksted Health Care were removed from the Health Department and set up as private nonprofit agencies, each of which now has their own governing board.

Frederiksted Health Care has been operating their clinic in the Strand Street location for years, but the building was owned by the Health Department. The federal mandate required they obtain their own lease separate from Health.

Webster said since 2000 they have been trying to negotiate the lease for the building in Frederiksted. In May 2002, the Legislature passed the authorization allowing the government to enter into a lease for the property.

The building was transferred to the Property and Procurement Department, so a separate lease agreement could be negotiated that would take Health out of the loop.

The lease is for 99 years, the maximum allowed by law. The agreement is broken down into a 50-year lease with four options to renew for 10 years each time and one option to renew for the final nine years. The clinic will pay Property and Procurement $1 per year for the facility.

According to the lease agreement, Frederiksted Health Care will be responsible for repairs to the interior and exterior of the building at their own expense.

In other business, the committee approved a bill to appropriate $12.4 million from the Education Initiative Fund - which comes from Lottery revenues - for the following purposes:
- $4,188,211 to pay existing contracts for E-Rate services.
- $7 million to implement the Department of Education's Textbook Adoption Program.
- $1.3 million for repairs to the territory's public schools