The Fiscal Year 2027 budget is law. OCR's appropriation sits inside the general spending bill, and its four requested law changes have no bill

As of October 4, 2026. The Fiscal Year 2027 budget is law. Governor Albert Bryan Jr.’s approval letter to Senate President Milton Potter is dated Friday, October 2, and Government House announced the signing on Saturday, October 3, two days after the fiscal year began. Bryan signed 27 budget-related bills, including a $739,218,837 General Fund appropriation “for the operation of the Government of the Virgin Islands during the fiscal year October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027,” according to the Legislature’s title for it. No item was vetoed.

The Office of Cannabis Regulation is not named in any of the bill titles or in the Government House release. Its money sits inside the general appropriation, as it did last year, and the signed text had not been published as of October 4.

What is enacted, and what is still not readable

Three pieces of the budget bear on the cannabis office.

• The General Fund appropriation. The Executive Budget recommends $1,160,218 for OCR from the General Fund. The office received the same $1,160,218 in Fiscal Year 2026, appropriated through the Department of Licensing and Consumer Affairs.
• The Tourism Advertising Revolving Fund appropriation. A $45,950,000 appropriation to nine named recipients, Licensing and Consumer Affairs among them. OCR asked for money from this fund to cover Metrc, the seed-to-sale tracking system. The recommendation is $100,000.
• No Cannabis Fund bill. OCR’s request included $250,000 from the Cannabis Fund. No bill in the package carries that fund in its title.

Those figures come from the August 7 budget hearing record, not from enacted text. The Legislature publishes bill titles in its session readouts, and neither appropriation’s text could be read at source for this report. The office asked for roughly $1,610,218. The Post Audit Division put the recommended total at $1,510,218, $100,000 below the request, detailed in the August 7 hearing record. No published document yet shows whether that line changed before passage.

What OCR told the board about advertising

The Cannabis Advisory Board met Thursday, September 24, with a full quorum. Near the end, board member Jennifer Matarangas-King relayed a question from the public chat: would the office’s upcoming career expo be advertised in the newspaper and on the radio?

Executive Director Joanne Moorehead answered that paid ads were not in the plan. “I don’t want to say this, but budgetary constraints, the newspaper and radio station ads are very costly,” she said, per the meeting recording. The expo would go on OCR’s website and social media instead, and she said she would try to get it onto the radio and would look for space on Licensing and Consumer Affairs channels. Commissioner H. Nathalie Hodge, who sits on the board for Licensing and Consumer Affairs, responded that they would have to start tapping the tourism fund.

That is the Tourism Advertising Revolving Fund appropriation above. The expo runs October 26 on St. Thomas and October 28 on St. Croix, to put licensees who are near operational in a room with residents looking for work in the industry.

The four requests, still not bills

OCR told the Committee on Budget, Appropriations and Finance in August that its intoxicating hemp duties under Act 9072 “were assigned without a corresponding increase in appropriations or staffing,” and asked the Legislature for four things:

• Explicit authority to collect and retain licensing, application, renewal, fine, and training revenue
• Authority to license government-owned intellectual property created by the office, with royalties paid into the Cannabis Fund
• Cost-recovery authority for laboratory analysis, evidence management, product destruction, and administrative hearings tied to a specific licensee or violation
• Amendments to the Virgin Islands Cannabis Use Act addressing THC-infused food and beverage products

Each needs its own bill. None had been introduced as of October 4, according to the Legislature’s published readouts since August 7, and the measures Bryan signed carry none of them.

The first three bear on the office’s funding. An appropriation funds the office for twelve months. It does not let the office keep the fees it collects, and OCR’s own numbers show how far those fees are from covering it: $850 in operational revenue in Fiscal Year 2024, nearly $150,000 in Fiscal Year 2025, and nearly $200,000 as of July 31, 2026. Against a $1,160,218 General Fund line, this year’s collections cover roughly a sixth. Senator Kurt A. Vialet asked Moorehead in August whether licensing fees would cover the office’s technology costs. She said they would not.

Moorehead also told the board on September 24 that most public comments on the draft hemp rules were about the statute rather than the rules. “Those should be addressed with the legislators,” she said. “They are the ones who can make those changes, not the cannabis advisory board.” She said a legislative amendment allowing retail product in adult-use lounges, which the Cannabis Use Act does not permit, “is being worked on.” No such bill had appeared on a calendar as of October 4.

Where the program stands

The board amended two sections of the draft hemp rules on September 24 and has not voted on the full set. The CBD and hemp legality guide tracks what retailers can sell while those rules wait on a vote, the Governor, and publication.

On the cannabis side, a Tier 1 grower on St. Croix holds the territory’s first commercial cultivation Certificate to Operate, issued September 24, and Moorehead said the office is working to get certificates to operators on St. Thomas as well. The St. Croix testing laboratory is up and waiting on plants. OCR received 26 applications in the second round that closed September 15: 10 micro-cultivation permit applications, which OCR scores itself, and 16 license applications that go to the merit evaluation committee. None was for research and development. There were 40 active medical patients in the territory as of the September meeting, a count Moorehead said moves between 40 and 45 with renewals. No dispensary has opened for sales.

What to watch

• The enacted text. Until the signed appropriation is published, OCR’s final line cannot be confirmed.
• Whether OCR’s line reads $1,510,218 or $1,610,218 in the enacted text, and whether the Cannabis Fund’s $250,000 appears anywhere in it.
• Whether any senator introduces the revenue-retention, intellectual property, cost-recovery, or THC food and beverage requests, or the lounge amendment Moorehead says is being worked on.
• Thursday, October 22. The next board meeting, proposed at the regular 2 p.m. time. The full hemp rules have not come up for a vote.
• October 26 and October 28. The career expo on St. Thomas and St. Croix.
• The third week of November, Moorehead’s target for the next Responsible Vendor Training round, which licensees’ employees need before they can start work.