The $400,000 committed by the U.S. Interior Department in last week's joint federal-local task force meeting to audit the V.I. government's books won't begin to cover the cost of the project, a Government House official said Monday.
Rudolph Krigger Sr., special assistant to Gov. Charles W. Turnbull on financial affairs, said that to run an audit and close the books on 1998 alone would cost about $1.2 million.
David North, spokesperson for Interior's Office of Insular Affairs, said Interior was "not sure how far the funding will go, but the movement will be backwards, with 1998 being done next, then as much of '97 and '96 as possible."
Krigger said because the government has not audited its books since 1995, a lot of work would have to be done on 1996 and 1997 before an audit could be completed for 1998.
North said it will be up to the governor's office to choose a firm to complete the audit that Interior is partially funding. Krigger wasn't sure what the process of choosing a firm would be, but said it ordinarily would focus on one of the "big five" auditing firms. The recently completed 1995 audit was done by Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., he said.
"We need a firm with experience, not one that's at the bottom of the learning curve," Krigger said. He also indicated that when one of the large international firms is contracted, its people usually work in conjunction with a local firm.
Krigger said that due to the urgency of starting the audit, the usual practice of issuing Requests for Proposals might be bypassed.
